


See You In Shibuya

by end_alls



Category: Kingdom Hearts, Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Riku/Sora/Yozora, Riku/Yozora, Spoilers, Spoilers - Kingdom Hearts III, Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You Spoilers, making myself sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-11-07 21:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 68,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17968667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/end_alls/pseuds/end_alls
Summary: Sora and Riku are thrown into Shibuya and Shinjuku, each taking part in a parallel Reaper's Game and each forced to give up something they hold dear. It's all decidedly not what Neku had in mind."You shouldn't. Be here."A voice came from nowhere to lodge in his chest like a knife. Sora looked up again to find Neku suddenly standing there. He saw the friend he'd met in his dreams—the friend he'd promised to see again—fixing him with a glare colder than any he could remember."What? Neku– Where did you– Why are all the people–“ he stammered, trying to find words that would help this makesense. There was something in Neku's expression that scared him. He knew the hurt he saw there was his fault."Show me your hand, Sora." Neku held out his own to Sora, palm up. It reminded him of a dream, and for a moment he thought he could hear the sea.Riku. He wasn't going to be happy about this."Your hand, Sora!” Neku demanded. In his voice, Sora thought he could hear some strangled emotion trying to wrestle free."My..." Sora looked down at his hand for the first time since he'd landed here, and felt his heart plummet.54:35





	1. Day 1 - Sora - Partners

**Author's Note:**

> (Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers etc)
> 
> I wanted to base this as heavily on the KH3 secret ending as I could, and I'm aiming for it to be an AU-ish TWEWY world that mashes together TWEWY canon and KH3D canon with a splash of new stuff. I was unbelievably hyped to see 104 in the secret ending, even if the next KH story isn't going to be THIS blatant of a crossover.
> 
> These first 2 chapters are meant to be read in parallel.

Sora was lying in a crosswalk, brightly illuminated by countless street lights and screens. He ached all over, feeling like he’d been unceremoniously dropped into the middle of the street. The dive had not been easy on him.

Slowly, he raised himself to a sitting position, rubbing at the back of his head. Skyscrapers circled him like the bars of a cage that seemed to go on forever, and Sora didn't recognize any of them. It wasn’t San Fransokyo, or even The World That Never Was. And where were the people? There were cars around, and he was definitely in the middle of a crosswalk, so there should be at least _someone_. This was another world, definitely, but how had he-

"You shouldn't. Be here."

A voice came from nowhere to lodge in his chest like a knife. Sora looked up again to find Neku suddenly standing there. He saw the friend he'd met in his dreams—the friend he'd promised to see again—fixing him with a glare colder than any he could remember.

"What? Neku– Where did you– Why are all the people–“ he stammered, trying to find words that would help this make _sense_. There was something in Neku's expression that scared him. He knew the hurt he saw there was his fault.

"Show me your hand, Sora." Neku held out his own to Sora, palm up. It reminded him of a dream, and for a moment he thought he could hear the sea.

Riku. He wasn't going to be happy about this.

"Your hand, Sora!” Neku demanded. In his voice, Sora thought he could hear some strangled emotion trying to wrestle free.

"My..." Sora looked down at his hand for the first time since he'd landed here, and felt his heart plummet.

_54:35_

A black timer stained his palm, ticking down like an alien pulse. It was just like Neku’s, from before. But Neku’s hand was blank.

“You’re a Player, Sora,” Neku continued. His voice trembled as if he was trying to keep it from breaking. “Do you even know what that means?"

Sora did, now. He had felt like this once before. Just once.

“What did you _do_ , Sora?”

But it was all Sora could do to stop himself from crying. "Neku... that means when we met, you were... you're..."

"I'm not dead anymore," he snapped. "You are."

The tears he'd felt coming evaporated. "You're alive? You made it back?"

"What are you smiling for, asshole? Did you miss the part where I told you you were _dead?"_

Sora hopped up, wincing as he remembered how sore he was. "But Neku, you made it back! And so did I, before!"

"You think it's easy?" Neku was mad. Why was Neku so mad at him? "It wasn't. It's still not."

"But you had Shiki, Rhyme and Beat, Joshu—“

"Joshua is gone." It was another knife to the chest. Neku wouldn't meet his eyes. He turned his back to Sora, face hidden by his collar. "He's... I don't know where he is." Sora could hear tears pressing their way into Neku's voice, as hard as he'd tried to stifle them. "Turns out it was all his fault. Everything." He was angry, Sora knew, but there was grief there, too.

Neku was mad at Joshua, at Sora, but his heart was hurting for them, too. For the first time, Sora realized that Neku wasn't wearing headphones.

"Neku, I... I'm sorry. It's going to be all right, I promise." He didn’t know what else to say.

Finally, Neku sighed. “It’s not that easy.” He rubbed his face, trying to hide the fact that he’d been crying a moment ago. “But. Thanks for making it sound that way.”

Sora smiled. "We've got this, Neku." Just as he reached to pat Neku's shoulder, it fell from his touch like he was brushing through sand, before reforming again like crackling static.

Neku watched him, mouth tight. "I told you, Sora. I'm not dead." This was hard for him. Sora wasn't sure if it was difficult for him to maintain his projection here, or if it was because of what Sora had done. Neku took a breath. "Which means you need a Partner, before—“

Neku was cut off by a distant, vicious growl that reverberated through Sora's ears. It sounded like it was being broadcast through an intercom in his head. Suddenly, Neku was gone. Or rather, Sora was somewhere else, pulled to where the noise was coming from.

A pack of strange wolves had appeared, with claws that looked like ink drawings—except real, and very, very sharp. Without warning, they lunged at him, and he summoned the keyblade.

It didn't come. The closest wolf wrapped its teeth around his forearm, and Sora was thankful for his wrist guards. He kicked it off.

It must have been a fluke. He called the keyblade again and again. It didn't come. It couldn't come. The wolves were slamming into him now, trying to knock him over. What were these things?

He dashed, trying to dodge them, and just as he was about to tuck and roll, Sora's leg suddenly buckled. He cried out in pain staggered, quickly looking down at his leg to see where the wound was. But there was nothing there. That had been someone else’s pain, he realized.

Sora reached out with his heart, and latched onto the thread that was connecting him to someone else. They were in trouble too, and both of them were hurting for it.

But he’d spent too long thinking. One of them bit into his arm in the same place as before, finding purchase this time. He felt the pain pass along that connective thread, shared between the two of them. He had to do something before he hurt them again.

In a panic, Sora summoned a burst of fire to scatter the wolves and buy some time. He needed a plan. He needed help. Neku had mentioned a partner.

Of course. Sora already knew who his partner was. His voice just had to reach him. Even if Riku wasn't here, no matter how far away he was, Sora knew he would hear.

"Riku!" Sora yelled into the night sky, calling to Riku with all his heart. He dodged a lunging wolf, and for a moment he thought Riku might not have heard him after all.

"Hello?" Right on cue. It was Riku's voice, finding him all the way in Shibuya, clear and strong. He sounded worried, but Sora had expected that. He knew everyone was worrying about him.

"We can do this, Riku! Together!" he called, heart lifting. Everything was going to be okay.

“Right!” Riku answered him. “Together!” Sora could hear the smile in his voice. Good. No sad faces allowed.

The wolves seemed to hesitate, as if they could sense the tides turning, and Sora summoned his fire with new strength in his heart.

_The power to make everyone happy._

———

"They took it." Neku explained, once Sora had been dropped back. "To play the Game, you have to give up something important.“

Sora was staring numbly at the ground. How could they have taken his keyblade? It didn’t seem possible, and even worse, it meant he couldn’t use the power of waking—not until he’d gotten it back. Once again, he was powerless.

Neku folded his arms, exasperated. "But that doesn't explain how you fought the Noise without a _partner_."

"I do have a partner!" Sora insisted. "It's Riku!"

Neku scoffed, and threw his arms out. "So where is he? Not in _this_ Game. You're telling me you made a pact with someone who isn't even _here_?"

Sora brought his hand over his heart, brow furrowing. He was certain he'd heard Riku. He'd felt him get hurt in the fight. What else could they be but partners?

Neku let out one more sigh, conceding for now. ”You don't have much time left. What does your mission mail say?"

"Mail?" Sora asked blankly.

"It should have been sent to your phone.”

Sora reached into his pocket, expecting to find the Gummiphone, but what he pulled out was a sleeker, red metal phone that was folded in half. No Gummiphone, no calling Riku. He took a breath and opened it. One unread message.

_Rub Hachiko for luck. You'll need it._

Sora showed the message to Neku, who let out a sigh of relief. "Hachiko isn't far. I'll give you directions."

Sora did a little hop. "Then let's go!"

But Neku stayed where he was. He wouldn’t meet Sora’s eye.

"...You aren't coming with me?"

Neku rolled his shoulders, tilting his head as if his neck was stiff. His form seemed to shudder a bit, static lining its edges. "Sora, I... I can't stay with you. Not all week."

"You mean you have to go?" Sora asked, heart dropping. He didn't like the thought of being alone whenever he wasn't fighting Noise with Riku.

"I phased in here to find you, but I can't stay like this." Neku seemed reluctant to leave, but Sora could tell that it was beginning to strain him. It looked like there was no helping it.

Sora flashed him a smile. "I'll be okay, Neku! Besides, I've got Riku helping me! He's my partner!"

Neku nodded hesitantly. “Look, clear today's mission, and the timer will disappear." He seemed about to say something more, but he was having trouble finding the words. He looked at Sora. "You… sure you can hang tight for a bit? Without me?"

Sora put a hand as close to Neku's shoulder as he could without phasing through. "I'm not alone. Riku is with me, no matter what. He's a part of my heart, and I'm a part of his. Nothing will change that."


	2. Day 1 - Riku - Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahead lies something you need, but to claim it, you must lose something dear.

Riku rolled over on the concrete, head pounding. Every muscle felt heavy, like he’d been slammed into the ground. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open, taking in the street lights and realizing that it was night time. How long had he been out? How late was it?

Why was he here?

Riku pushed himself up, from his hands and knees, up to a kneel, and finally to his feet. Then the whole world tilted, and there was nothing nearby to grab onto. He stumbled, but managed to catch himself before he fell back onto the concrete. Slowly, Riku shuffled to clutch at a nearby lamp post until he could get everything to stop spinning. It felt like there should be something in his head to steady him, something to give him direction, but its absence just rattled around, making nothing but empty echoes.

When the dizziness subsided enough for him to loosen his grip on the post, he caught sight of something dark on his palm. Was he bleeding? As he brought it into the light, his chest tightened.

_51:26_

Burned into his skin was a pitch-black timer, somehow glowing in the dim light. It ticked with a grim certainty that set him immediately on edge, one question rising easily to the surface, even through his muddled thoughts. _What happens when it reaches zero?_

The question hung with him like a weight. Riku couldn’t begin to process what it all meant. It was like his head was filled with sand that kept sifting around, burying and reburying any thoughts that tried to surface.

He kept it to simple questions, letting his thoughts flow as freely as they could. Where was he? On a city street at night. What had he been doing? No idea. How had he ended up here? He’d done something wrong.

Though it felt like the right answer, the thought had come too easily to give him any comfort. He also couldn’t recall _what_ he’d done wrong, or why he’d done it.

Head still heavy, he surveyed the buildings that surrounded him. His pulse quickened as he realized that he didn’t recognize any of them. Pushing down the panic rising in his chest, he looked around, trying to spot a landmark. A massive building stood before him, sporting two towers tipped with red lights. As he tried to commit it to memory, mark where it was in relation to the surrounding area, something growled.

It was a sound like nothing he’d ever heard before, like wild dogs recorded and played back through a distortion filter. Like something out of a horror movie.

They crept from the darkness and into the street lights, with smooth, coordinated movements. They looked like wolves, but... wrong. Pieces of their bodies were abstract, as if they existed in multiple dimensions at once. As they inched closer, Riku caught their scent—darkness twinged with metal and asphalt, like they were made of the city itself. The things were nothing like Heartless or Nobodies or anything he'd fought before.

He summoned the keyblade to his hand, but it felt wrong too. It was heavier than it had been in years, as if the weight he was carrying in his chest was pressing down on it too.

The wolves began to circle him. Did they sense his weakness? He couldn't stop feeling like this was all wrong. He shouldn't be here. No one should be here.

Faster than he thought possible, they lunged. He held his keyblade to defend himself, but the wolves were relentless. One knocked him to the ground with the force of a motorbike, while the others lunged and clawed at him. He felt one’s teeth dig into his leg. He kicked it away, wincing.

Riku began swinging back, batting them off with his blunt keyblade. But they didn’t stay down long enough. Suddenly, his arm spiked with pain. It felt as if he’d been bitten, but there was no wound. He fumbled the keyblade, and it clattered out of his grip. These things could bite without even touching him?

As Riku clutched at his arm, he felt doubt begin to bleed into his heart. He still had no idea how he’d gotten here, why he’d come, or what he was supposed to do. What if he didn’t have enough strength to beat them? There was nothing here for him. Nothing but noise and static.

His mind was already filling with it, unintelligible and chaotic. It blocked out all thought, and for a moment he thought that might be all right.

Then, breaking through the crash of the static came the sound of waves. Of the sea.

“Riku!”

The voice rang clear through the noise, like the dial in his head had finally been turned to the right channel. It knew his name.

“Hello?” he shouted back automatically, though in a moment of panic he thought that it might not even be able to hear him.

But then it answered, and he knew his voice had reached it too. “We can do this, Riku! Together!” The voice sounded like sunshine, like the tides calling him home.

“Right!” The word sprang from his mouth, simple and easy. “Together!”

Riku summoned the keyblade to his hand again, its heft still off, but now more certain and comforting. It was as if the pain had vanished. He turned back to the wolves, which had fresh damage from some unknown force. But that wasn’t true. Riku knew it had been the voice.

He raised his keyblade once more.

_Strength to protect what matters._

———

Battle over, Riku re-materialized on the same street. He hadn’t noticed when the wolves had attacked him, but now he wondered if they’d pulled him into some pocket dimension in order to attack him. Experimentally, he tried calling his keyblade again. It wouldn’t come. Could he not summon it here…?

“They really did a number on you."

A voice came from behind him, nothing like the one that had called his name. Riku spun to see... himself? Leaning against a post was a silver-haired young man in black. Riku’s mind flashed with images of the other Rikus, the ones he hadn't been able to save. He couldn’t dwell on that now.

But as the man pushed off the post and stepped into the light, Riku realized he wasn’t a replica at all. Their outfits were similar, spiked white hair gleaming under lamp light, but the face was different. And the eyes... The young man's eyes were heterochromatic—one blue and one red, and they seemed to flicker in the low light.

"They?" Riku asked blankly. He was still trying to get over the appearance of another living person in a city he thought was empty. Though even as he thought it, “living" didn't feel like the right word. He smelled odd, like…

"The Reapers.” The young man had hopped to perch on top of a bench, one foot resting where you were supposed to sit. “We're in their Game."

If this was a Game, it wasn’t a fun one. Those wolves had nearly torn him apart. ”So... they're playing with us?"

The young man nodded. "They'll kick us around for a week or two. But they say anyone who makes it to the end gets to come back to life."

_Back to life._

Riku's world swam, waves crashing and dragging him down with their surf. But in the midst of it, in the eye of the storm, was the knowledge that the young man wasn't lying, or joking. The timer ticking on Riku’s palm. The odd scent, he realized, was on _both_ of them.

_37:45_

He was... How was he— _why_ was he...

“Stay with me,” the young man interrupted, cutting Riku's spiral short. “Hey. Look at me. You’re gonna make it through this.”

Riku looked at him. Into his strange, impossible eyes. Why was he the only one here? How had he… “Who are you?"

"Yozora," he said, bright eyes flashing in the dark. "And before you ask, I'm a Player. Like you." He gestured to his back, as if that would explain it. “What about you? Do you have a name?"

Riku's mind was still racing, and he felt like he might faint. “Riku,” he managed.

“Sit down.” Yozora nudged the bench with his foot, gesturing to the part he wasn’t currently sitting on.

———

Yozora ran him through the basics of the Game, of Noise. That’s what those wolves were called. Apparently, Riku hadn’t even seen the half of them yet.

"Don't know how you did it, but you made a pact, too,” he said, eyeing Riku oddly.

"A pact?"

“With a partner. You need one to fight the Noise with. So where are they?”

The voice he’d heard. That was his partner, then.

Riku shook his head slightly. “I… don’t know where they are. I thought… I heard the ocean?”

“But did you hear _them?”_ Yozora sounded skeptical, but Riku knew he hadn’t imagined it.

“Yes. They called my name.”

The odd look Yozora was giving Riku shifted to one of incredulity. “Your partner is supposed to be with you, like, all the time. You only get split up when you fight Noise. How are you partnered with someone who isn’t even here?”

Riku was sure he didn’t know, but something else didn’t add up. “...How long have you been in here?”

“Four days.”

If what Yozora said was true, no one in here could fight without a Partner. So how had he made it so long?  “Where’s your partner?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Then how do you fight the Noise?”

Yozora's eyes tilted lazily to the side. He seemed to bored by the question. "I fight on both planes at once."

Riku's patience was wearing a little thin. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Yozora gave a small sigh. "To fight the Noise, you need to damage them in two planes of reality at once. That's why you need a partner—one to fight on each of them. Usually."

 _Usually._ "You can fight on both planes… at the same time?" Riku asked carefully.

Yozora’s flippant expression had suddenly become distant, his mismatched eyes staring out at the empty streets. “They split me."

“They what?”

Yozora turned on him, eyes burning. _“They. Split. Me.”_   With each word, Yozora’s eyes flickered again, caught in that same dimensional abstraction Riku had seen in the wolves’ strange claws, and Riku realized he hadn’t been imagining something off in Yozora's gaze.

"The Reapers? They can do that?" It didn't seem like the right time to ask _what_ it was they'd done.

Yozora’s tone had soured into outright spite. "When they put you in the Game, they _take_ something from you. Something you need. Haven't you felt it?"

Riku had. Did. It was like a big hole had been carved from his heart, leaving a gaping chasm he couldn’t begin to imagine ever filling.

But what had they taken?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope Yozora didn't hurt his legs jumping down from that huge building
> 
> It stands to reason that another district means another Game Master, another Composer, another Game


	3. Day 1 - Mission END

**— >>SORA**

Sora ran towards Hachiko alone through the night, following Neku's instructions. The city was huge, and hugely confusing. Sora knew he'd have gotten lost immediately if Neku hadn’t helped him, but he was getting close now. First he spotted the green train car sitting under the street lights, and then, he finally laid eyes on Hachiko. Sora slowed his pace and came to a stop before the statue.

As the mission instructed, Sora rubbed his hand along Hachiko’s paw, smoothed by the touch of innumerable strangers. He liked to imagine he was connecting with all of those people somehow, even though none of them were with him now.

Sora kept his hand on the statue, thinking. Right as he began to wonder if it had worked, he felt the statue prickle beneath his touch, as if a current of electricity had been sent through it. He wrenched his hand back, startled. Then, he saw the statue began to quiver, as if a bunch of Hachikos were overlaid on top of each other, all moving at once.

Just when Sora was beginning to hurt from looking at it, a thicker, meaner wolf Noise leapt from within the statue. Sora barely had time to sidestep out of the way, but he felt the ground shift, like the world was a television changing channels. He knew he was in the battle plane—the place where he could hear Riku.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku was wrenched into combat.

 _“Eventually, your partner will pull you into a fight. We can use that time to find out where they’re playing the Game from.”_ Yozora seemed to think that they were partnered with Riku remotely, but stuck somewhere else, like maybe the Reapers had them locked away as part of their entry fee. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Immediately, Riku scanned the field for landmarks. There was a statue of a dog, facing an antique train car. They were near a station, then? At least they seemed to be somewhere in the city. And there was something else that was difficult to miss: an oversized wolf Noise, guarding the dog statue. It let out a distorted growl at him, but didn’t move from its spot.

“Riku! Are you there?” The voice had been waiting for him.

“I’m here!” Riku called back, perhaps a little too eagerly. He didn’t even know who the voice belonged to. But Yozora’s image of someone trapped by the Reapers, unable to do anything but fight, had him shaken.

“Riku, they took my keyblade.” He could tell the voice was struggling to maintain its sunny optimism.

His partner had a keyblade too? _Had_ a keyblade? Had that been their entry fee? Riku called his own keyblade—to make sure it was still there, to heft its weight in his hand. Though it still felt off, and though he would have traded anything to fill the vastness of the hole he still felt in his chest, he was glad to have it.

“It’ll be all right,” Riku said with more confidence than he felt. It sounded like both of them could use it. “The keyblade is just a tool. It isn’t what makes you strong!”

He could hear the smile in his partner’s voice when they spoke again. “You’re right, Riku. Let’s take care of this Noise!”

This time, when they fought together, it was exhilarating. This time, Riku could watch the Noise more carefully, exploiting the openings when it staggered from blows he hadn’t dealt. He felt a bolt of pain when the wolf bit into his partner’s shoulder, knocking them to the ground, and felt as together, they batted the creature away again. This time, they were winning, and Riku wasn’t sure if it was that this wolf Noise was easier, or if it was the connection to his partner making him stronger. Maybe both.

He landed blow after blow with his keyblade, until finally the great wolf’s legs buckled beneath it and it fell to the ground, edges crackling. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Looks like the mission’s almost over!” the voice called, out of breath and still smiling. “But we’ll see each other tomorrow!” They seemed content to leave things at that for now, but Riku wasn’t.

“Wait!” Riku couldn’t go another day just calling them “partner”, not when they used his name every chance they got. “What’s your name?”

 

**— >>SORA**

_What’s your name?_  
_What’s your name?_  
_What’s your name?_

The words ricocheted through Sora’s chest, down to his heart and into his deepest core. He couldn’t move. Riku wouldn’t joke about something like that. He wouldn’t.

So why had he said it?

Sora played back everything Riku had said to him since he’d gotten here. Something had been missing. They were always calling each other’s names, each other’s hearts, but Sora realized that here in the Game, he had been the only one calling.

But Riku couldn't have just lost Sora from his heart. He had to have been taken. Then the pieces settled into terrifying place. Sora had messed up, gotten himself put in this Game, and Riku must have come after him, like he always did.

Riku was in here too.

Sora couldn’t even feel where the wolf had bitten his shoulder. He watched as it struggled to maintain its form, letting out distorted howls that gave Sora chills. How could he do this if Riku didn't even know his name?

The Noise burst into static, Sora felt the timer lift from his hand, and then everything went dark.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku waited for an answer, watching the Noise as it began to disappear. It was dissolving faster now, becoming that strange static that the creatures all seemed to be made of. If a player fell in this dimension, would they become part of that same oblivion?

Finally, the wolf's form burst into black and white nothingness, and Riku was phased back without an answer to his question. He hadn't raised his gaze from where the wolf had been lying.

"Riku." In a moment of lingering adrenaline, he thought it was his partner, but then came the realization that he'd been pulled out of the middle of a conversation with Yozora.

 _The timer._ Had it run out? Riku checked his palm. Nothing. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

"You need to stop doing that."

“What?” Riku asked, exasperated. “Getting pulled into battles?"

"I mean zoning out," Yozora said. "The Noise only need to catch you by surprise once." There was an edge of something in his voice. Was it guilt? "The Reapers will be getting hands-on soon, and you need to be ready."

"It's the first day," Riku said.

”It's _your_ first day," Yozora snapped. "It's my _fourth_ , and I doubt they're happy about it." The Reapers wanted to erase players that badly? They didn't even want to give them a chance?

He continued. “So what I'm saying is, if you plan on sticking together, you should know I’m not doing your chances at survival any favors.”

Yozora watched Riku as he considered it. He hadn’t seen a single other soul since he’d gotten here, and Yozora had been helpful so far. And even though he doubted either of them would say it aloud, it seemed like Yozora wanted Riku’s help just as much. To be playing the Game alone, in here for 4 days…

Then again, maybe he hadn’t always been alone.

“I’ll stay.”

Yozora seemed a little surprised, but didn’t let it show for long. Riku thought he’d seen his eyes flicker again.

“We’ll stick this out together, as long as we can,” Riku said. He wouldn’t be going down easy—and especially not before he got the chance to to thank his partner for saving him. “We’ll find my partner, too.”

Yozora continued to watch Riku, staring at him for just longer than was comfortable, then nodded.

Riku held his hand out to clasp Yozora’s, but he just waved it away without touching it. “Hey. When you fought with your partner just now, what did you see?"

It was an unexpected segue, but Riku was ready for the question. "A metal statue of a dog, with pointed ears. In an alcove near a train station."

Yozora looked at him like he was making a joke.

"What?” Riku asked, face dropping. If Yozora hadn’t heard of a statue like that, they were back at square one. “You don't know it?”

" _You_ don't know it? What, did you get offed during your first vacation to Japan?"

Riku didn't think it was the right time to bring up the fact that this was his first time _hearing_ of Japan.

“That statue,” Yozora went on, “…is called Hachiko. It's in Shibuya, just south of here."

"How far south?" Riku asked hopefully. He and his partner hadn’t been in the Game for long—maybe they just hadn’t reached each other yet.

But Yozora’s eyes were distorting again, glitching like a TV screen. Riku could tell he was losing his patience. “Riku, Shibuya is in another district.”

That still didn’t sound so far. Yozora went on, eyes crackling. “So what you're telling me, is that you made a pact with someone in another _district?_ Another _Game?”_

Riku held his ground. “Is that not possible?”

Yozora threw his hands up, exasperated, sending his entire form into a glitch, as for just a moment, pieces of him seemed to offset, and then snap back together. _They. Split. Me._

Yozora took a deep breath to compose himself, but Riku could hear the distortion lingering in his voice. “…I nEed tTo take a walk.”

He turned to storm off, but Riku swerved around him, cutting him off. “What’s the problem? If they’re in another district, maybe they could—“

“Could what?” Yozora snapped. “Help us?” He stopped trying to get around Riku for a moment and pointed behind them, to where Riku assumed Shibuya was. “You know what happens if you try to go to Shibuya? You hit a wall. As far as we’re concerned, that district line is the edge of the world.”

Yozora let out another breath. “We’re trapped, and so are they. No one is saving anyone.” For a moment it looked like Yozora was going to shove past him, but instead, his body glitched apart again, and reformed just behind Riku. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

Riku followed Yozora as he made his way back towards the two-pronged skyscraper with the flashing red lights. Yozora had stopped glitching himself forward to extend the distance between them, so Riku figured it would be all right to say something. “...Shouldn’t we find somewhere to sleep?”

“Do you feel sleepy?” Yozora walked faster, and Riku jogged to catch up.

Riku admitted that he felt tired, but the thought of going to sleep felt somehow foreign. _I guess the dead don’t need it._

Yozora took a sharp turn towards the building, and Riku recognized the pattern of the cobblestone he had been lying on when he woke up.

“This is…”

“It’s where they drop all the new players, far as I can tell.” Yozora looked up at the red lights. “There’s a good view from the top.”

They reached the base of the skyscraper. It was eerie to see so many office lights and know that, in this plane of existence, their rooms were all devoid of people. Yozora had said they were interacting with the living plane, and it was acting upon them, but neither plane could see the other.

Riku approached the side of the building, gauging how difficult it would be to scale. It was broken into segments, and he figured he could make it all the way to the top with enough wall climbs and some well-placed jumps. He took a step closer.

“What. Are you _doing_.” Yozora was standing next to the building’s entrance, holding the door open.

_Oh._

Riku followed Yozora inside, through the lobby and toward the elevators. A "DO NOT USE" sign had been mounted on one of them, and Riku noticed that its security badge console was hanging from the wall, with freshly set plaster that hadn’t yet been repainted. Based on the scope of the repairs, the damage must have been fairly large.

“Did you—“

“I wasn’t taking the stairs,” Yozora said, pulling the door open with his hands and stepping inside. Riku followed, taking note of the usual maintenance equipment scattered on the floor of the elevator, and, tacked to the wall, what appeared to be some sort of paper charm.

Yozora noticed him looking at it. “I think they think we’re ghosts.”

He pressed the button for the top floor, and the doors slid closed.

Riku's eyes drifted down to his empty palm. “…The timer on my hand disappeared.”

Yozora glanced at him. “It was probably linked your partner's. Maybe to do with their mission for the day.”

“Mission? Do we have one?”

Yozora busied himself adjusting his gloves. "The mission is already on your phone. Should be the same as mine."

His phone. Riku suddenly remembered the Gummiphone. He hadn’t really called anyone since he’d gotten it, so he’d forgotten he had one. But as he wrapped his hand around the object in his pocket, he realized it wasn't the Gummiphone at all. Riku produced a sleek blue cell from his pocket, and flipped it open. The clock said it was almost midnight. There was no service, and a single message on the display.

“I’d bet they have timed missions every day, or every few hours,” Yozora went on. “We only have one.”

_Stay alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I end these like TWEWY does, with titles like
> 
> the 1st day  
> "ANOTHER DISTRICT"  
> CHAPTER CLOSED.


	4. Day 2 - The Game(s)

**— >>RIKU**

_Stay alive._

It sent a chill down Riku’s spine, and he was suddenly aware of how very small the elevator was.

“Ironic, right?” Yozora seemed unperturbed, as usual, but at least he didn’t take the chance to attack Riku when there was nowhere to run. Riku shook his head. He was being paranoid. Though, maybe the better word was “cautious”.

They stepped out of the elevator, but it would take a maze of doors, hallways, and maintenance passages to make it out to the part of the roof Yozora was heading for. It looked like several more repairs had been made along their path, cordoned off with polite signs and little ropes. What had gotten up here?

Riku noticed Yozora stall in front of a glossy window outside an office to check his reflection. Riku looked at his too, as they passed. He couldn’t see anything blatantly wrong with it, nothing clearly missing, even though his chest still felt like it had been scooped clean of its contents.

 _They take something from you._ Riku had hardly stopped thinking about it since Yozora had brought it up. He’d been sifting through his thoughts, through his memories, trying to find exactly what was missing. He’d left the islands looking for adventure, then Kairi, he’d gotten possessed by Ansem then trapped in the realm of darkness, done a lot of fighting to make it out, and he’d eventually made it back to the Islands. Then there was all of the fighting to defeat Xehanort, obviously. His memory wasn’t perfect, and so much had happened to him in the past few years that he had trouble keeping it all straight in his head sometimes.

But he couldn’t seem to remember a shred of his Mark of Mastery exam—even though he’d taken it alone, and passed. Had the Reapers removed his experience? Some piece of his power? He didn’t think he had become a Nobody—he had definitely been feeling his usual feelings, and more—but there was still _something_ making him feel just as empty.

As Riku held one of the maintenance doors open, he glanced down to see what looked like claw marks etched into the metal.

“…Did the Noise make it all the way up here?" Riku asked, concerned that they might not be safe for the night.

Yozora looked back at him like he had no idea what he was talking about, but then his eyes fell on the marks. “…Oh. They did,” he said. “But they don't anymore."

Riku hardly found that reassuring—nor, if he was being honest, at all truthful—but he opted to keep his guard up and leave it be for now. They were already all the way up here, so if Yozora had led him into some sort of trap, Riku would just have to deal with it.

At last, Yozora pulled open the door that said ROOF ACCESS - DO NOT ENTER, and the two of them stepped back out into the cool night air. It was astoundingly high, and entirely empty on the roof. No traps, just a lot of dark puddles left by the recent rain. Riku could see the top of the skyscraper’s other pillar across from them. It looked close enough to jump to.

Yozora approached the edge of the building, then dropped to a seat, legs dangling casually over the edge. _Does he have a death wish?_ Then Riku remembered, once again, that they were both already dead. And yet for as many times as he had remembered it, it never seemed to get old.

He stood next to Yozora, though not so close to the edge. Yozora raised his arm to point at some buildings just a little ways away. The lights there almost looked warm, compared to the sea of cold blues that Riku had seen so far.

“Shibuya is over there,” Yozora said. “About 4 kilometers.”

Riku drew in a breath. It was so close. And all the way up here, it felt close enough to touch.

Riku looked out at the city for a long while with Yozora, both of them saying little. Riku had eventually sat down next to him, legs safely drawn up on the roof. He noticed that Yozora kept his gaze turned down, towards the spot where Riku had appeared.

“Hoping for another player to show up?”

“No, but then again, I'm not a monster," Yozora said. “But if one does, I don’t want to the Noise to find them before I do.”

The wolves. He’d been watching then, too.

“…Thanks,” Riku said.

Yozora rolled his eyes. “For what? Showing up after you’d already almost gotten torn to shreds?”

Riku didn’t take it back. He’d meant it.

Yozora shifted his legs, moving to dangle the other one. “…You’re really strong, Riku. Even without what they’ve taken.”

“So are you.”

Yozora let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “No. No, I’m not. I’ve just been lucky. Or maybe really unlucky.”

“But you’re still here.”

“Plenty of people aren’t.”

Riku turned back to the city. He didn’t want to know, but he asked anyway. “How many?”

“Eight.”

Riku winced. Neither of them looked at each other. Eight people—4 pairs of partners, probably. Maybe one pair a day.

It wouldn’t happen again.

“There won’t be any more,” Riku said. “We’re winning this game.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Riku thought he saw Yozora smile.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora was woken by noise. Not _Noise_ noise, but rather the sound of people everywhere, of engines stalling, of a city in motion. He blinked his eyes open, momentarily unsure of where he was. Someone was standing over him, obscured by the sun.

“Riku…?” More shadows crossed his vision. People were talking. Everything was so _loud_. Was he lying in the street?

“It’s me, Sora.” Neku’s voice came from above him.

"Neku…? But you said…“

"It's the next day, Sora."

Sora managed to raise himself to his elbows, and squinted around, confused. The two of them were in the middle of Scramble Crossing, during the daytime. And there were _people_ , people everywhere, walking in every direction through the crosswalk. He raised himself further, up onto his knees.

“Why am I… Where did all these people…” Was he not in the Game anymore? Had clearing the mission gotten him out? His foggy thoughts were cut short as a group of girls plowed right through him, passing as if he wasn’t even there. One of them shivered, while the others burst into a peal of laughter at something one of them had said.

No. He was still in a nightmare.

“Getting put in the Game is… a lot to take in,” Neku tried. “They probably put you in an empty plane, for the first little bit. Then moved you here after the first mission.”

“Why don’t I remember?”

Neku managed a vague shrug. “Between missions, they... put you into sleep, or stasis or something."

Sora wanted to be mad. He wanted to scream. He was sick of sleeping, being put to sleep and handed around. It made him feel trapped, useless, worthless. But instead, what had happened yesterday finally breached the surface to hit him like a wave, and all he wanted to do was cry.

“…Hey, what’s wrong?” Neku asked, trying to catch Sora’s eye. “What happened?”

“Riku’s here too,” Sora said numbly.

He watched Neku turn to look around, as if Riku could be _here_ here. “Where?! In the Game?”

It wasn’t this one, Sora knew. He would have been able to feel Riku’s presence otherwise. “Neku, are there… other Games?”

Neku stilled, and Sora had his answer. For a moment, they were both silent. Then, quietly, Neku said, “Then he’s in another district.”

“He doesn’t know my name.” Sora’s eyes were pricking with tears, threatening to overflow.

Neku stood there, frozen, trying to process it. A heavy silence hung between them, until finally, “…If you were supposed to be his entry fee, they couldn’t have taken _you_ , exactly—you’re in the jurisdiction of another Game.” He looked at Sora. “They would have tried the next best thing.”

Sora didn’t want to hear it, but Neku said it anyway.

“They would have had to pry you out of his heart.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku and Yozora had spent the rest of the night up there on the building, but no other players ever came. In the morning, they walked the perimeter of the district, verifying the boundaries of their massive cage. Riku had stopped at the border of Shibuya, but was impossible to see through to the other side. Reality seemed to distort right where the districts touched, as if neither could consolidate with the other.

Yozora had insisted on running from the Noise whenever possible, and Riku hadn’t argued. “Until you get another timer, your partner might not be there to fight with you.”

Just as they were nearing the end of their trek, a swarm of jellyfish Noise started blooming from a sewer grate directly in front of them, nearly beneath their feet. The air crackled with electricity, and Riku could see their stingers splaying, sharp as razors. But before the swarm could touch them, Yozora shoved Riku backwards. It was the first time Yozora had laid hands on him, and for a moment, Riku felt an odd sort of tug between them, like a pull between two magnets. For an instant, he even wondered if he was going to fall, or just remain suspended there in the air. Then he was on the ground, and Yozora had vanished with the Noise.

There was nothing Riku could do but sit there on the concrete, dumbstruck, waiting.

After what felt like too long, though his rational mind kept telling him it hadn’t been very long at all, Yozora phased back. Riku caught a flash of the jellyfish’s tentacles splayed like a starburst, and for a moment he thought Yozora had somehow brought the Noise back with him. Then they dissolved, and Yozora doubled over, trembling and crackling with glitches as he held his shaking form. Was this what it took, every time?

“Yozora!” Riku scrambled up to run to him.

“DoNn’t comE any cL-ser!” Yozora’s voice was distorting again, but there was ichor in it Riku hadn’t heard before. Riku stopped. “I jUst. need a mmiNute.”

Yozora took a few more shaky breaths, waiting for his pieces to settle. Riku’s chest was tight. He should have done something, but what? Whatever Yozora had, it wasn’t something that could be fixed with a Curaga.

Yozora stood. “Let’s kEep moving.”

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora barely registered the sting of the timer appearing on his hand, nor the buzz of the phone notification in his pocket. Awful thought after awful thought came at him in torrents, one crashing on top of the next. What if Riku _hadn’t_ come in after him? What if Sora had been the one to pull Riku in, to put him in the Game against his will? What if it was all Sora’s fault that Riku was in trouble—again?

“Sora. Hey.” Neku was trying his best to be gentle. “It’s not your fault.“

For once, Sora didn’t want to hear it.

Neku knelt next to him. “They didn’t take _you_ , Sora. You can fight for his sake. You can bring him back.”

“Can you bring Joshua back?” But as soon as the words were out, Sora wished he hadn’t said them.

Neku squeezed his eyes shut, and stood. Sora thought he might leave him there. He deserved it.

“…No. I can’t bring him back.” Neku turned to look at the 104 sign. “But I’m trying to do right by him. I’m trying to… to keep things from falling apart without him.”

He lowered himself back down to Sora, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Because _if_ he comes back, I don’t want to have let him down.” Neku’s mouth was quirked in the sort of smile you only make when you’re trying to keep yourself from crying. Sora would do anything to keep Neku from making that face. Anything for Riku. Anything to win this game.

He pulled out his phone, and looked at the message.

_Keep Gatito going strong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof


	5. Day 2 - The Wings

**— >>SORA**

"Don't you dare lose these," Neku warned him, for what felt like the zillionth time. He placed a small handful of graffiti pins in Sora's palm. "If you do, I'll kill you all over again."

Sora rolled his eyes. "I have to win the game first."

Neku gave a small smirk. "You will."

The pins in his palm were all designed by CAT, a street artist Neku was clearly a fan of. Sora wasn't sure he'd ever seen him so excited. It was maybe a little scary.

"This one doesn't do anything unless you pair it with this one," Neku said, pointing to various pins in Sora's palm. He would never be able to remember any of this. “That one is a design pulled from the CAT mural in Udagawa, and _this_ one, was a limited edition that came with a postcard set I preordered."

“And what am I supposed to do with them?”

“Just wear them—use them in battle, and you’ll influence the trends around Shibuya.”

“How does that work if I’m _invisible?”_

“Players can influence the real world by doing things inside the UG. There’s some sort of subconscious connection between the RG and UG.”

Sora sighed. He still didn’t completely get it, but wearing the pins would be easy enough. And it meant he’d be fighting a lot of battles with Riku.

Sora examined the pins in his hand more closely. He wasn’t much of an artist, but from what he could tell, what he could _feel,_ the designs were really something special. “…Why Gatito? Is it not doing well or something?”

Neku was looking at the pins in Sora’s hand too, but his eyes were far away.

“…CAT disappeared, a while back,” Neku eventually said. “They just… stopped making art.” It sounded like Neku had more to say, but he didn’t.

“…Oh,” Sora said. “I’m sorry.” He _definitely_ couldn’t lose them now.

Neku sighed. “Me too.”

To Sora’s surprise, Neku pulled one more pin from his pocket, and affixed it to Sora’s lapel. Was it the pins making Neku tangible today? This new one was scuffed—it hadn’t been taken care of like the others, but it did look like a CAT design. A white skull on a black background.

“They don’t use these in the Game anymore, but… you can keep this one, for good luck. Don't let CAT be forgotten.”

Sora brought his free hand up to touch it, and immediately felt a shockwave rush through him. Voices and emotions came from everywhere, flooding into his head. He thought he might faint, but then he felt Neku’s hand lift his off the pin.

“It’ll help you hear Shibuya. Listen to what it has to say.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

The timer finally appeared on Riku’s palm, accompanied by a sharp sting. He showed it to Yozora.

_7:59:41_

It was set for a decent part of the day this time.

He thought back to last night—it seemed so long ago, not having slept—and how he still hadn’t learned his partner’s name. Today, he was determined to.

The next Noise to come after them was a flock of penguins, rocketing forward on their bellies from a hill above them. If Riku hadn’t fought so many goofy-looking Heartless, Nobodies, and whatever else, maybe this sort of sight would phase him more than it did.

“I’ll take these,” Riku said, stepping forward. He wasn’t letting Yozora fight the Noise by himself again, and he took a breath to hope that his partner hadn’t been busy with something important.

Riku felt the shift into battle, and the thread that connected him to his partner. He summoned his keyblade. This time, he was the first one to call.

“What’s your name?”

His partner was only too eager to answer, but something was wrong with the words. “It’s S_-_!”

The name had cut out like a phone with a bad signal.

“I can’t hear you!” Riku said, a little panic rising in his voice as he bat away a penguin that had slid at him.

“S_—!! It’s S—-!” He heard the fear in his partner’s voice, too, then felt a small sting as his partner was hit by the wake of a penguin’s attack. It was just the name he couldn’t hear. Only the name. “Can’t you hear it?! It’s S-—!” Riku felt his chest twist the way it did when he saw someone else cry.

“I-It keeps cutting out!” The Reapers had to be interfering with something. But why? What reason could they have for keeping his partner’s name from him? The penguin Noise were coming faster now, skidding around them and kicking up jagged patterns of water. There was no more time to talk.

**— >>SORA**

Sora had been excited to hear Riku again, to get the chance to tell him his name. He had been ready this time.

That had all come to pieces as soon as they’d started the fight. It didn’t matter how loud he’d yelled it, or how many times—Riku hadn’t heard.

The two of them fought together, but this battle was harder. Their attacks didn’t flow together like they had when they were fighting the great wolf yesterday. The line that connected them was being strained by something Sora couldn’t fix—not right now. Heck, the _penguins_ seemed more coordinated than they were.

Still, eventually, they made it down to the last Noise, and after taking a deep breath, Sora decided he was ready to try again.

“…It’s okay, Riku.” Sora didn’t believe it, not really, but he wanted Riku to. And when he did, Sora knew that he could believe it too. Riku was going to be all right—they both were. “My name’s not important. What matters is that we’re partners.” That, he did believe. With all his heart.

“It’s not okay!” Riku contested, in typical Riku fashion. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours!”

Sora grinned, in typical Sora fashion, and blasted one last fireball at the Noise. “Just call me ‘partner’!”

**— >>RIKU**

The two of them continued fighting Noise for a good part of the day. Riku’s partner had explained that they needed to fight a lot of them to complete his mission. As for the mission itself and how it worked, his partner hadn’t explained it very well, and Riku still didn’t entirely understand it.

But as the tension between them began to ease, the fighting got easier too. Riku knew it was also in no small part thanks to the fact that the Noise in Shibuya weren’t _remotely_ like the ones in Shinjuku. His partner only seemed to fight them when they wanted to, and they came in all sorts of vibrant colors that made them look softer, less scary. They could fight three Shibuya battles for every one in Shinjuku, so Riku and Yozora continued to run whenever possible. Besides, he doubted fighting in Shinjuku would do anything to help his partner’s Shibuya mission.

After a few hours, they were beginning to tire, but the timer was still there. They still hadn’t fulfilled the mission.

_4:35:28_

“My partner said his mission is to influence the people of Shibuya by fighting the Noise. Does that sound… I don’t know, like something that could work?”

Yozora rubbed the back of his nect. “I mean… maybe in some weird poltergeist way,” he tried. “Everything’s all… layered on top of everything else, so it would make sense for stuff here to influence things outside, right?” Like how Yozora had broken the elevator.

Riku just hoped whatever they were doing was working, if slowly. “And about our mission… You said the Reapers would be getting hands-on soon. Why haven’t we seen any?”

“Maybe you’re not worth our time!”

Riku spun to see two women perched upon the awning of a bus station, who definitely hadn't been there a moment ago. Riku hadn’t been sure what to expect of the “Reapers” that Yozora kept talking about, but it wasn’t this. They each had web-like, pitch-black wings, and…

They were both wearing hooded black cloaks. Riku’s shoulders dropped, and he let his head roll back. Not again.

“What the hell do you want?” Yozora spat at them, with a vicious familiarity that told Riku this wasn’t their first encounter.

“Just checking in on the parasite and its latest plaything!” the first one called. The other, a little taller with a dark braid that peeked out of her hood, nodded.

Yozora’s eyes flashed red. “Leave us alone!”

The braided one turned her hood to Riku. Her voice was soft, like flower petals. “Has he told you what his entry fee was…?”

Yozora growled, and lobbed a blast of fire at the two Reapers. Riku realized he’d never learned what it was Yozora fought with. Was it magic, or something else? He didn’t seem to be carrying a weapon, but then again, neither did Riku.

Before the fire could hit them, the Reapers leapt gracefully into the air, then hung suspended by their wings. The first one laughed. “Ooo, someone’s got a temper. Doesn’t he have a temper, Ume?”

The braided one nodded. “Such a temper, Haru…”

“Why don’t we give our little Players something to play with? Help them cool down a little?” Haru spread her hands before her, and summoned two large Noise symbols that slid to the ground, sinking into the concrete. The black ink from the symbols pooled, and from the ichor sprang a flock of cawing ravens, and several winged mammals that slithered through the air like snakes.

“Have fun, boys!” she called, before the two Reapers vanished into static.

The new creatures were white and black, like the rest they’d seen, but these summoned Noise went for both of them at once, with a purpose and drive that Riku had yet to see. The slithering things whizzed through the air, straight for him, and there was no time to stop the flock from attacking Yozora. He caught Yozora’s burning eyes for just a moment, before they were both phased into separate battlefields.

**— >>SORA**

“No!” Sora heard Riku yell, like he had been trying to stop something, someone.

“Are you okay?!” Sora called, a little panicked by the suddenness of the shift. These Noise looked nasty, too—and Sora barely managed to dodge the ferret-like, furry snake with wings that had barreled toward him as soon as he phased in.

“They got Yozora!”

Sora shook his head, not sure he’d heard right. Had Riku finally said his name, or… “Wh-What?!”

“Another player! Yozora!” Sora felt Riku’s arm take a slash from one of the swirly Noise’s wings.

What.

What?

_What?!_

“Yozora is REAL?” Sora blurted out. One of the Noise whipped itself into a tornado that knocked his next attack back at him, sending Sora tumbling backwards.

Sora raised himself from the ground. It had to be someone with the same name, right? Because Riku wouldn’t know the name of some fake _video game character,_ and _not_ remember the name of his best friend in the world, right? Sora turned on the ferret things and hit them with a particularly intense blast of fire that dissolved three of them into static.

**— >>RIKU**

Riku hesitated. What was his partner _talking_ about? A couple of the Noise suddenly burst into static. At least they seemed to be doing okay against them this time. “O-Of course he’s real! He’s been the one helping me!”

His partner had either gone quiet, or was too busy with the last of the winged Noise. Riku himself was trying to keep doubts from taking hold of his heart. The Reapers had called Yozora a parasite, and now his partner… didn’t think Yozora was real? What was the truth? Yozora certainly hadn’t been forthcoming about it.

“Tch.” He could think about it all he wanted once they had finished this, once he’d made sure Yozora was still around to answer questions.

Riku swung his keyblade at the last remaining Noise, shattering it into static. He felt the planes starting to shift again.

 

When he made it back, Yozora was already there, covered in feathers from the Noise he’d just fought.

But that wasn’t right.

Yozora was hunched over, shaking and glitching more violently than he had been before—so much that he was difficult to even look at. Even though the sun was still high in the sky, the air around him seemed dark, corrupted, like a broken computer screen. And through the warped haze that enveloped Yozora, Riku saw the wings.

They weren’t sharp and clean, like the Reapers’ had been. They were shattered and broken, cobbled together from afterimages of the raven Noise that had attacked Yozora. Riku remembered the jellyfish tentacles. And the claw marks inside the building.

_The parasite._

Riku approached him slowly, and sank to kneel beside him. “Yozora…”

What was left of Yozora shook his head, eyes squeezed shut. He was trying to stabilize, like he had before. Like he always did. Like he’d been doing for four days.

It wasn’t working this time.

“What can I do?” Riku asked. He couldn’t lose him. They were all getting out of this together—Riku, his partner, and Yozora.

Yozora only shook his head again, and let out a pained hiss.

And though they weren’t touching, Riku felt that same magnetic pull from the form beside him. Something inside Yozora was tugging on him.

“DoN’t… d-on’t…”

But Riku wasn’t going to do nothing this time. He laid his hand on Yozora’s shoulder, and felt the effect immediately. His hand stuck fast as the soft tug he’d felt became a gravitational pull he couldn’t escape.

And then, beneath his touch, Yozora began to change.

The feathers crackled away in pulsing waves of static, and the dark distortion started to disperse. As he stabilized, Yozora’s hair lightened, features adjusting, and when he raised his face to look at Riku, Riku was looking back at himself. One teal eye and one red began to fill with tears.

Riku’s hand was still locked on Yozora’s shoulder. The active pull had stopped, but he was stuck there, unable to move. Yozora wrenched himself out of Riku’s grip, and turned to the ground to hide his face. Riku’s arm fell limply to his side.

“…They tore me apart.” Yozora spoke in a whisper, as if it would hide the fact that he was talking with Riku’s voice, too. “And now I—now other things come in to fill the cracks.”

The words put Riku’s heart in a vice. Yozora had been dealing with this for the past four days. Without sleeping, it had to have been more like eight. Fighting against everything trying to pull him apart. But he had kept going, not even thinking to mention the toll it was taking.

It reminded Riku too much of himself.

“Are you going to leave?”

The question caught Riku off guard, and if the world hadn’t been so quiet, he wasn’t sure he would have heard it.

“Why would I leave?” Riku asked, keeping his voice as calm as he could manage. He was still trying to process what Yozora had just done to him.

“They all either leave, or they try to kill me.”

“Well I _won’t,”_ Riku said, feeling like he was scolding a child.

Yozora kept his head down. Riku stared at him, searching for answers.

The word “parasite” was still running through his head, but Riku couldn’t feel anything missing—and over the past day, he had gotten used to taking stock. There was nothing gone that hadn’t been removed already. Yozora was wearing his face, but Riku knew he hadn’t _taken_ anything from him. It was as if Yozora had just… borrowed him, to fix himself. That made him more like a broken mirror, a computer copying data to help itself run.

“You could have told me,” Riku started. “I would have—”

“I know that _now.”_ Yozora sat back, and covered his face with his hands. Riku knew what it looked like when he was trying not to cry. “Your memories are everywhere, you—everything that happened to you is—god dammit.“

“So you know I would have _understood,”_ Riku pressed, staying firm to keep himself from shaking. Yozora was talking in his voice, wearing his face, and he’d gotten into his memories, too. It was getting hard for Riku to look at him, hear him like this. The Riku replica was too fresh in his memory. He probably always would be.

_The world already has you._

That hadn’t made it fair. That hadn’t made it right.

The latest Riku lookalike had leaned back forward to stare wide-eyed at the ground, clearly sifting through more information than he’d anticipated.

“How… the _hell_ did you get _here?”_ Yozora had gotten to the crux of it.

Riku let out a small breath, and forced himself to smile. “When I find out, I guess you’ll be the first to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who else likes dying and being dead
> 
> KH is all about villains eavesdropping on the party to find convenient segues for their grand entrances, and it’s also about getting really really sad and discovering new combinations of characters who would die for each other
> 
> edit: [made some art of this chapter!](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1114692329799995392)


	6. Day 2 - CAT

**— >>SORA**

Sora sat on a bench, staring down at the last takoyaki on his plate. He’d already wolfed down a whole Mega Sunshine Burger combo and a soft serve cone, then stopped at a takoyaki stand in the mall. Ever since he’d found out he could go shopping and buy food, he’d gone a little overboard.

Sora had always been a big eater, but after finding out that there had been one, then two, then _three_ people in his heart, it had made sense. Once they had gone, it was like his appetite had been cut in half. Here in the Game, though, he’d gone back to feeling hungry all the time. Maybe it was because he was tied to someone else’s heart again—maybe Riku hadn’t been eating right.

 _Riku._ Sora frowned, poking a takoyaki with its skewer. He hadn’t seen any other players here. No one but Neku could see him outside of the Game-marked shops, and Neku had left again hours ago.

Sora was playing the Game by himself.

Riku was playing it with a video game character.

Sora had the skull pin Neku had given him to hear people’s thoughts, which should have helped him feel a little less lonely and invisible, but he still hadn’t been able to use it without feeling dizzy. There were too many people—too much thought, and his mind was so open that it all rushed in at once, impossible to understand. Someone as closed-off as Neku probably had an easier time with it.

He sighed and tilted his head up to the sky. He wished Kairi were here.

Sora quickly shook his head. No, not _here_ here, but with him, near him. Just close enough to sense her light and know that everything would be okay. She was the strongest person he knew—strong in the real way, and that gave him strength too. He was glad to have brought her back.

He thought of the others, too—all the friends he’d left behind. Tearing himself apart for them, just to end up here... had it been worth it?

Of course it had. Of course.

It didn’t make this easy.

Sora popped the last takoyaki in his mouth and tossed the plate into the garbage can next to the bench. He pulled open his jacket to look at the Gatito pins stuck to the inside—he’d gotten into the habit of counting them to make sure he hadn’t lost any—then down to the timer on his hand.

_2:26:07_

He was starting to worry. He’d been all around Shibuya, fighting Noise until Gatito had gone up in the charts on his phone. But the clock was still there. There had to be something he was missing.

Sora tried to remember everything Neku had said about CAT. That they’d designed all sorts of things, art, clothes, furniture. And a mural—Neku had mentioned a mural, in Udagawa. Maybe there would be some sort of clue there. Sora allowed himself one more “Riku doesn’t remember me” sigh, and hopped up.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

After what had just happened, it was _really_ time to avoid the Noise at all costs. They couldn’t know if or when the Reapers—those witches, Haru and Ume—would show up again, either. So Yozora and Riku were in the skyscraper again, this time headed to one of the maintenance hallways instead of the roof. He wasn’t too keen on being out in the open right now.

They hadn’t said a word to each other the whole walk over, even though Yozora had about a thousand things he needed Riku to _explain,_ and even though Riku probably would have explained them. He was such a good goddamn person.

As much as Yozora had wanted to keep his distance, they really were in this together now. And with so many of Riku’s memories kicking around in his head, it was impossible to deny that Riku would be a good ally, and maybe even a good friend.

It hadn’t been like that with the others. Death tends to make people ugly, turn them into something else. He’d been through 4 different pairs of partners, and all of them had become monsters in the end. Toward him, toward each other, toward everything. Being around each of them had put things he didn’t want inside him, and he’d let them, because the alternative had been the Noise.

Yozora had been trying to ignore how much Riku was looking at him, even though Riku’s eyes slid off him every time Yozora looked back. He couldn’t be mad—Riku was the only one who’d stayed after Yozora had pulled someone’s appearance completely—but the pitying looks were beginning to get on his nerves. He wanted this to be over with.

When they passed the reflective office window, Yozora checked to make sure his eye was still there. His original features kept getting buried and reburied in the layers of other people, but the one thing that always remained was the red eye.

Unfortunately, Riku noticed him checking this time. Cautiously, he asked, “…How much have you been drawing on me, since I got here?”

As questions went, it wasn’t Yozora’s first choice, but it was the one he’d been expecting. “Passively,” he said, trying not to grimace. “Since you got here.”

Riku went quiet, considering it.

“I-It’s not like I’ve been rooting around in your head, I just—catch things, sometimes.” Why was he blubbering like this? “It’s never on purpose.”

“It’s okay,” Riku said as they kept walking.

Yozora still looked and sounded like Riku’s doppelgänger, but his features would begin to settle again soon, back into the median between Riku and his partner. Because it wasn’t enough to have one person seeping into you—the bond of a pact gave him both. Even when one of them was in another district. Apparently. At least Riku and his partner were cute.

His partner. Yozora wondered if he knew more about him than Riku did. He was a _he_ for one—Riku never seemed to use anything beyond "they". He had a name that Riku didn’t know and Yozora hadn’t gotten—yet. He fought with fire magic, mostly, which Yozora had managed to copy a couple times. He didn’t have a keyblade, Riku did. He’d gone dormant when Riku’s timer ran out.

But most of all, above everything else, Yozora knew that Riku’s partner loved him. They seemed to have a history Riku didn’t remember, and that made things hard. Yozora’s chest sometimes felt heavy when they finished a battle together.

Even without the memories of his partner, though, Yozora could tell that Riku was beginning to love him back.

He ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t something he belonged in the middle of.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora climbed the last of the steps up to Udagawa. It’d been a real hike to get there, and he was about to take a minute to catch his breath when it was sucked out of his chest.

The CAT mural was… sublime.

The shapes felt like they could burst from the wall at any moment, and start to dance. The colors spoke to each other, flowed and then clashed. It was like looking at a symphony. Even though he could see where the mural began and ended, it seemed to go on forever. Neku must have felt the same way he did, looking at this.

This was CAT. Sora stepped closer, and began to notice little additions on the fringes, little flourishes that other artists had painted. No one seemed to want to cover up too much, and Sora even noticed a section of the design that looked like it had been painted by someone else, as if they’d tried to restore a part that someone had sprayed over. All these artists respected CAT. Missed them.

Almost in a trance, Sora brought his palm to rest on the wall. This felt like touching Shibuya, even more than the skull pin had.

“How’s it looking, kid?”

Sora spun, searching for who had spoken and who they were talking to, because he could have sworn he was alone.

A man stood there, dressed in a black jacket and a scarf. He was looking right at Sora, not through him, like he was waiting for an answer. Sora’s mouth opened and closed, unbelieving.

“G-Good?” Sora stammered, still not entirely believing the man would hear him.

The man turned back toward the mural, scratching his stubble. “Just ‘good’, huh…? Maybe CAT is losing their touch…”

“No!” Sora blurted. “They… This mural is incredible.”

The man blew a loud breath from his cheeks. “I dunno, Spikes. A whole wall, all to themself? Seems a bit selfish.”

Sora looked at the mural, which spanned the entire alley. “But… they must have spent to much time on it.”

“And now it has to be theirs forever?”

The man turned. Sora saw that he had a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder. From it, he produced a can of golden yellow spray paint, which he tossed to Sora. The color reminded him of paopu fruit.

“I think it’s time that CAT let someone else take the spotlight.”

Sora clutched the can to his chest. “I… can’t. My friend will be mad at me. He loves CAT.”

The man turned to the wall, and gave it a fond pat. “This mural has been here for years. I’m sure that friend of yours has it burned into their retinas by now. And they won’t be able to see anything else until someone puts it in front of them.”

Sora wasn’t sure he could do this. “But I’m not an artist! And isn’t vandalism illegal?”

“Excuses, excuses, Spikes,” the man said, shaking his head. “Everyone has an artist somewhere in their heart.” He made a little motion with his hand like he was turning a key. _“You just have to let them out.”_

Sora eyed him, trying to figure out what he wanted. He sort of reminded him of Xigbar, but… more like a Xigbar he could actually be friends with. He was warm, too, and Sora could practically hear music inside him. He felt just like the mural did. Like a symphony.

“Are you CAT?”

The man smirked, then gave a noncommittal shrug. “We can’t live in the past forever, Spikes. CAT isn’t a person—it’s an _idea._ One that’s supposed inspire people to create their own art, to write their own songs, to be something _more_ than just an _idea.”_ He nodded at the can in Sora’s hand. “So be more.”

The man reached out and gave Sora’s skull pin a playful tap. He didn’t seem to react to it at all. “As long as people in Shibuya are making art, CAT’s not going anywhere, Sora.”

Then the man shrugged off the duffle bag, letting it fall to the ground before Sora, and turned to go.

“W-Wait! Can you wait here while I get my friend?”

“Afraid not, Spikes,” he said with a sigh as he started down the stairs. “And you’d best keep this convo our little secret if you don’t want him ripping your head off.”

 

Sora took a deep breath—praying once more to himself that Neku wouldn’t erase him on the spot when he found out what he’d done—and raised the spray can to the wall.

The first stroke was terrifying, but every one after it felt easier. Sora had no idea what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop the smile growing on his face. It was like he was a kid again, scratching doodles into the cave wall on the islands.

He started with a star, using the golden yellow the man had given him. It was big and bright and seemed to shine from inside the wall itself. He pulled a green can from the duffle bag and painted on the leaves of a paopu fruit. He kept going, adding colored shapes around the paopu until it was surrounded like the panes of a stained glass window. The orange sunset met the blue ocean met the light sand, and then Sora added more colors—streaks of purple night in the sky and flashes of red and orange on the water and green seafoam that touched the edge of the sand.

He painted with his heart, and it guided him through sunsets and waves and seashells and palms. The island, the raft, the storm, the calm—everything was there, rendered in bold streaks of color.

And then, too suddenly, it was over.

Sora set down the paint can, and for what had to be the first time in over an hour, he caught sight of his hand. The timer. _Oh no._

But it was already gone.

Sora stared at his paint-splattered hand. When had it disappeared? Did this mean he’d finished the mission, or that he’d failed? He wasn’t erased yet. He was still here. But he hadn’t gone to sleep.

He looked at the mural.

A paopu fruit shone back at him, ringed by fractions of sand, ocean, and sky.

The Destiny Islands were here with him now, and he could almost hear the waves. Tears began to well in his eyes. “Kairi… Riku.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Yozora perked up like he’d heard something, and Riku went into alert.

“What? Did you hear something?” They had been waiting in the building for a few hours now, and even though the timer had disappeared, Riku was starting to get antsy.

Yozora looked at him, eyes wet. “No. Nothing.” He almost looked upset.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

His face had returned to the one Riku had seen when they’d first met, but now that he was looking more closely, Riku could pick out the pieces of his own face melded with Yozora’s. But there were other features, too. Whose were they?

Yozora moved to run a hand through his hair, then froze. “What the—“ He tried to wipe something onto his pants.

“What is it?”

Yozora turned his hand to face Riku. The tips of his fingers had turned yellow, like they’d been painted.

“Where did that come from?” Riku asked, standing up. They hadn’t moved from this part of the building for at least the past hour, and paint that color didn’t belong in an office building like this. It was the same color as paopu fruit, and it looked out of place under the harsh flourescent lights.

Yozora hopped down from the metal bar he’d been perched on and tried to rub it off again, but more colors were beginning to appear on his other hand.

He held both of them front of him, palms up, and sighed.

“What’s doing that?” Riku asked, concerned. The colors looked harmless enough—like a sunset on the ocean, but something was clearly off.

“Why don’t you ask your partner,” Yozora grumbled.

“My _partner?”_ Now that the timer was gone, wasn’t his partner supposed to be out of commission, in some sort of stasis? At least, that’s what Yozora had—

Riku blanched. “You’re connected to _them_ too, aren’t you?”

Yozora winced. “I… Not as closely as I am to you, but…”

Riku’s mind was already working. His partner was awake, even after the mission, and… they were painting? What did it mean? Was it some sort of message?

Riku looked back at Yozora’s hands. His partner’s hands. He wanted to touch them, but he knew that if he did, he’d just overwrite the colors.

Yozora pocketed his hands. “Point is, your partner cleared the mission, but he didn’t go into stasis this time.”

_“He?”_

Yozora tipped his head back. “Yes, okay? Your partner is a he.”

Riku felt a thrill in his chest. “What else?”

Yozora frowned, squinting at the ceiling. “I-I don’t know, he—I think he has brown hair?”

 _Brown hair, and a voice that sounds like sunlight._ Riku turned to the door. “I have to talk to him.”

“You’re gonna go back out there? Now?” Yozora stepped forward, both eyes trained on Riku. “After what just happened?” Riku noted he’d yet to say _what_ it was that had happened a couple hours ago.

They’d spent too much time sitting in silence up here. It was time to go. “If I spend the Game hiding, I won’t be ready. Not when it counts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw the dude you’re playing the Game with has a crush on a VOICE


	7. Day 2 - Mission END

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up we’re getting into that Noise-based body horror this time

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora tailed Riku to the elevator.

“You don’t have to come,” Riku said.

Yozora did. If he lost Riku, he lost his best shot at winning and the first and only person who had made the Game bearable, all at once.

“Someone’s got to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. No reckless stunts.”

Riku gave a little chuckle, and shook his head. “Yes, sir.”

Yozora’s mouth quirked in a small smile, but luckily Riku didn’t seem to notice. His head was somewhere else right now.

They reached the lobby, and surveyed the street out the front windows. In the fading sun, Yozora could make out the outlines of two hooded figures casting long shadows from the top of a wall. One of them was laying down and bouncing her leg, while the other one gave them a gentle little wave through the window. Haru and Ume again. Didn’t this Game have any other Reapers to torment him with?

“Ugh, they’re like vultures.”

Riku stepped next to him. “Why don’t they come in?”

Yozora had wondered that too. “I think the building might be warded.” Maybe whatever they’d done about their elevator poltergeist actually did do something against evil spirits. The Reapers definitely fit that bill. “That, or they have orders not to.”

There seemed to be some things the Reapers weren’t allowed to do to players. As vicious as Haru and Ume were, they’d only laid their hands on him once, when he arrived. After that, they’d backed off, summoning Noise to throw at him and whoever he was with. Was there someone pulling their strings, or was it just more fun being there to watch him do his little show and tell?

“…Have they always been wearing those cloaks?”

He glanced at Riku. “…Like the Organization’s, right?” Like the one Riku had spent about a year of his life in? Yozora had enough tact not to bring it up.

Riku nodded.

“They’ve been wearing them since I got here.” He’d call it a coincidence, but it seemed like nothing was a coincidence when it came to Riku and…

Not for the first time, Yozora’s mind snagged on something in Riku’s memories. Another gap where something had been taken out. Maybe Riku was too deep in his own head to see the empty spaces, but there were more than he cared to notice. They were everywhere—days and hours gone, and holes in the shape of a person.

Yozora couldn’t be certain who it was, but he had a pretty good guess.

Riku gave him a concerned look. “Can you do this? You don’t have to go out there.”

Yozora blinked at him, startled. Oh. He’d thought Yozora was stalling.

“…Yeah. I’ll be fine.” He walked to open the door.

 

“Ooo, Ume!” Haru called, loud enough to ensure they heard. She hopped up from where she’d been lounging. “The little white mice are coming out!”

Ume tilted her head lazily toward Riku. “You’re still hanging around the parasite? Isn’t he contagious…?”

They’d been doing this for the past four days. Sowing doubt in everyone, most of all himself. He wasn’t going to listen to it today.

Riku, thankfully, turned to him instead of the Reapers, with a nod that said, _I trust you._

Yozora was going to get him to his partner. No matter what.

“Are you ready?” he asked Riku. “You won’t have much time to talk.”

But Riku had that look in his eyes. “It’ll be enough.”

“Hey! Are you ignoring us?” Haru had her hands on her hips, and Ume had stood behind her to drape her arms around her neck.

“We should get their attention, Haru,” Ume purred into her ear.

Yozora could hear Haru grinning under her cloak as she summoned a Noise symbol. This one looked nasty—too many sharp edges, too many claws and teeth. She held it aloft as Ume reached forward and laced her fingers through Haru’s. As their gloved hands came together, the symbol began to slide apart, doubling itself like a cell. One half remained white and black, the other was inverted—black and white.

Yozora’s mouth tightened. This was their favorite little trick. Splitting things in half.

The symbols began to sink to the ground. As they pooled, the ground rumbled like it was growling. Yozora had to act fast.

“Those are still the same Noise—they just split it in half! We have to take care of both of them!” He hadn’t figured that out, the first time.

Riku nodded again, ready. “Are you going to be—“

“Don’t worry about me!” Yozora hissed, pushing down the fear rising in his chest as he thought of the symbol’s teeth.

Two great bears were rising from the inky concrete—white and black, and inverted black and white.

Yozora gave Riku a parting nod. Riku returned it.

“Say hi to him for me.” Yozora ran for the inverted one, and phased into battle.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora had made up his mind to ignore Riku for a little while longer, and he thought they’d already decided that Riku would avoid fighting in his Game as much as possible. So when Sora was shifted into the battlefield, he didn’t know whether to be mad, or concerned.

Then he saw the Noise. _Concerned,_ definitely. Suddenly, he felt awful for even thinking to ignore Riku. What was he, 12?

The Noise was an enormous white and black bear, almost twice his height, with inky claws and dripping teeth. It roared and made a lumbering swipe at him, but he managed to roll out of the way.

“I’m sorry, I—“ Riku’s voice came in clear, but a little strained. He was fighting too. “I had to talk to you!”

Sora’s hurt evaporated, a smile blooming on his face. “It’s okay! Just one more thing for us to face together!” He tried hitting it with Blizzara, but it just shrugged the ice off its fur.

“Yozora is fighting too!”

Yozora again. _Quit being a baby,_ he chided himself.

“What does Yozora… look like?” Sora had conceded that he should at least check, the next time had the chance. He might have jumped to conclusions the first time.

Riku was knocked to the ground, but Sora saw the bear wince as he rose and hit it.

“What?” Riku called, a little dazed. “Uh… light hair, black outfit, plaid on his shirt? Red and blue eyes!”

That was him all right. Sora lolled his head back. This was actually happening, wasn’t it?

“Last time… you asked if he was real?” Oh. Sora grimaced. That’d probably been really confusing for Riku.

“He is!” Sora called. “I was… confused!” He was real if Riku said he was real. That was the end of it.

Sora’s leg stumbled as Riku took a hit from the bear, and both of them fell prone. But before it could land a hit, he cast a Firaga at it, leaving a dark singe on its white fur.

Sora took a deep breath, and pulled himself up. “You said you wanted to talk?”

**— >>RIKU**

More than anything. “Yes! I found out…”

Riku’s words evaporated. All at once, this felt like a stupid idea. Everything he’d been waiting to say suddenly sounded wrong—silly. _Your voice sounds like sunlight? I know we’re both boys now? I think I’m getting a crush on you?_ All of it was ridiculous.

“My name?” his partner asked, hopefully.

Riku gripped his keyblade. “No, not yet.” He flexed his arms and lunged, landing a solid hit on the bear.

His partner had gone quiet, probably focused on the battle. But Riku had made it through his muddled thoughts and remembered what he’d wanted to ask.

**— >>SORA**

“What were you painting?”

Sora’s heart leapt in his chest. He dodged a swipe from the bear.

“How… did you know I was painting?” he asked, out of breath.

Riku paused. “It’s… hard to explain. Yozora is—“ Sora felt Riku deliver another blow to the bear. “—he’s connected to both of us. He—knew you were painting.”

In a roundabout way, it made sense. The toys had mistaken Sora for Yozora, but Sora had always thought Yozora looked more like Riku. So, maybe their hearts had already been connected, somehow. And if Yozora was telling Riku things about him, Sora didn’t really care how it worked.

He smiled. “I was painting the sunset, and thinking about you.”

**— >>RIKU**

Riku stumbled. Had he… had he heard that right?

The sunset… and him? The two of them?

He had plenty of fond memories watching the sunset with Kairi, but… something had been missing. It wasn’t _like that_ with her. When he watched the sunset with her, he’d been thinking of other things—the worlds outside their own, all the places and things they could see _just_ beyond that horizon. He wasn’t thinking about lacing their fingers together on the trunk of the tree, and leaning to rest his head on—

Riku didn’t see the bear’s massive paw coming to backhand him until he was already rolling across the asphalt.

“Riku! Riku?!” His partner knocked the bear back as Riku lay there on the ground.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled, face reddening. He was falling in love with a voice. With someone he’d never even met. It was so… juvenile. He hadn’t ever felt like this before, not with anyone, and it was all coming on too strong, like a rushing wave he couldn’t escape.

He waited for his head to stop spinning enough to stand up again.

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora was having trouble seeing. That was the thing about fighting on both planes—it got hard to tell which one you were looking at. On top of that, his chest had been doing somersaults since they’d started the fight. Were Riku and his partner making out or something?

Yozora took a deep breath through his nose. The bear’s senses were kicking in now.

He looked down at his arms, crackling with distortions as they sharpened and blackened, budding with pale claws. He’d spent the first part of the battle hitting the bear with Riku’s partner’s fire, but Yozora had reached the point of the fight, as he always did, where pieces of the Noise began to overwrite him.

And with that threshold, came power. The power he’d used to make it this far, while he'd watched everyone else fall to oblivion.

Yozora lowered himself, body growing heavier, stronger. His head felt strange, and he tried to ignore the sensation of his mouth filling with teeth.

He went for the bear, claws drawn. It was still bigger than him, more powerful, but he was faster. Using both planes at once, he darted apart, then slashed at the bear from both sides. He jumped back together, then pushed off of his legs, leaping to deliver a blow to the bear’s head.

The bear tried to slash at him, but he split apart again, going intangible as the claws rippled harmlessly through him. Yozora could tell it hadn’t been a very strong blow. The Noise was beginning to weaken, which meant Riku and his partner had to be doing all right.

Yozora smiled, but the feel of his lips parting around razor teeth set him back on edge.

The truth was, fighting Noise felt amazing. These planes were a place his chaotic form understood, where everything he needed to be whole again stirred, waiting for him. But he could never shake the fear that when he truly let himself go, he wouldn’t get himself back.

It was time to end this.

He knew better than to call out for Riku, or his partner. This mouth couldn’t form the words. Instead, he pulled his thoughts to them, holding their faces in his mind as tight as he could. Riku, with his calm eyes and compassion. And his partner, with his brown hair and bright, blurry smile. _Don’t lose them. Don’t lose them._

Yozora pushed off his knees, claws dragging on the asphalt as he picked up speed, and roared.

 

When his awareness came back—thank god—the battle field was beginning to fade, Noise gone. He felt himself shuddering back together as the planes converged around him. He clenched his new teeth. This part always hurt.

Riku was running to his side, calling his name. Yozora recognized his scent. He looked around dizzily, vision doubled. How had he ended up on the ground? He couldn’t see the Reapers. Why did they keep leaving without finishing them off?

Riku grabbed both his shoulders, and Yozora was hit with a tidal wave of emotion.

**— >>RIKU**

Riku and his partner promised to talk again tomorrow—his heart was already buoyed by the thought of it—and he’d managed to phase back before Yozora this time. And now that he knew what to expect, he was ready.

What he wasn’t… entirely prepared for, was the thing that materialized on the concrete. It was Yozora, clearly, but Riku’s heart rate couldn’t help but tick up at the sight of the same claws and teeth that had almost erased him and his partner.

He’d called Yozora’s name and gotten no response, and he wasn’t in the mood to take chances, to wait until it got better. He brought both hands down on Yozora’s shoulders at once.

The form beneath him shuddered, then began to change again.

After a few excruciating moments, Yozora’s face came to mirror Riku’s, and he blinked his mismatched eyes open.

“Wh… You didn’t have to…” Yozora said groggily.

“You know I did.”

Yozora smiled up at him, eyes dreamy and far away. Riku couldn’t begin to picture that expression on Yozora’s usual face, so he took to wondering if this was what _he_ looked like when he was loopy with the flu. “Riku… How’d things go with your boyfriend?”

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora phased back to Shibuya, heart light. It was going to be okay. Riku was trying his best to remember him, and Yozora was… Sora didn’t understand what Yozora was, but he was helping.

Sora was still in Udagawa. He’d been too anxious to leave, and even though it wasn’t like anyone had been able to see him, he felt like he should be there to take responsibility, somehow. The sky was dark now, but his phone didn’t have a time other than the mission timer, which now just read COMPLETE.

Was that why he hadn’t fallen asleep? Because _they_ were still playing?

“You didn’t go into stasis.”

It was Neku. Sora paled.

He was leaning on one of the walls that faced the mural, looking right at Sora. He’d _absolutely_ seen the paopu by now. On top of that, Sora had left the duffle bag where it was—in case the mysterious man came back for it—and the same colors were still all over his hands. He was caught, yellow-handed.

“I-I didn’t mean to, I thought—“

Neku turned to the mural, eyes on the paopu. He was so hard to read! Was this he looked like when he was disappointed? Furious?

“You didn’t sign it, but I knew it was you.” Neku finally said. “It has ‘Sora’ written all over it.”

“I-I’m sorry I…”

Neku was quiet again, for so long that Sora was about to apologize again when finally, “…It was the right thing to do.”

“W-What?”

Neku was frowning, but it was a thoughtful sort of frown. He pushed off the wall. “With that mission, I thought… the best thing would be to remind people of what CAT had done. But I wasn’t thinking of what CAT was _about.”_

It looked like Neku wasn’t going to kick his butt after all. Sora tried not to make his relief too palpable.

Neku approached the mural, and put his palm to it. It was a fond, familiar gesture that Neku had no doubt done many times before. “CAT inspires people. Inspires me. And you. To make our own art, our own world—connected to others.” He nodded to the paopu. “That was yours.”

Neku drew his hand from the wall, gaze lingering on CAT’s designs. It felt like he was saying goodbye.

Neku turned to the duffle. “…Where’d you get all that?”

Sora stammered. _Our little secret._ “Someone… left it here.”

Neku walked over and picked up a can, hefting it like it was heavier than it was.

“I think it’s my turn.”

 

Sora watched Neku paint for hours. It was like he was composing and conducting music, all at once. He’d started next to Sora’s paopu fruit, then moved left, building upon his work as he wove new shapes and ideas into being.

Neku painted through most of the night. It was a release of everything he’d held bottled inside him, all of the words he never said out loud. It was hard for him to say how he felt, Sora knew, but the piece he was creating said it all for him. Loss, frustration, loneliness, but also hope, and light, and passion. There were cat dolls and skulls and wings, and… beams of light breaking through darkness. Sora could even spot some Dream Eater colors running along the mural’s seams, and a small crown like the necklace Sora wore.

By the time Neku set down his last paint can and stepped back to survey his work, his addition to the wall had grown to three times the size of Sora’s paopu. Sora pulled himself up to look at it with him.

"It’s pretty.”

 _“Pretty?”_ Neku said indignantly, folding his arms.

Sora smiled at him. “It’s your heart, saying everything you won’t. And it’s pretty.”

“Did you just call my heart ‘pretty’?”

Sora grinned, leaning back. “Yup! And there’s nothing you can do about it!”

Neku huffed, but Sora could tell he was hiding a smile.

“…Thanks, Sora. For being here.” Then his smile sloughed off, and he turned his eyes to the ground. “I mean. I’m sorry you’re _here,_ but…”

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Sora said, and meant it.

Neku gave him a look like he’d lost his mind, but Sora’s smile didn’t falter.

“If I wasn’t, I never would have known you needed help.”

Neku’s eyes began to well, and as he raised his wrist to wipe them, Sora stepped closer. He wasn’t sure if he could touch Neku this time, or if Neku even wanted to be touched, but Sora held his arms open, there if Neku needed them.

He did.

Neku buried his face in Sora’s shoulder, and Sora pulled his arms around him in a warm squeeze. To his surprise, Neku hugged him back, with more force than he’d anticipated. Sora brought his hand up to stroke Neku’s back gently. Voice muffled, Neku eventually managed, “Of course your hugs are amazing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for following along! I’m still going... very strong on the writing side, but I’m hoping to manage drawing some fanart(?) over at toppiegames on twitter! Feel free to yell with me over there


	8. Day 3 - Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coming up: the boy is back in town

**— >>SORA**

Neku and Sora signed their respective pieces with a paint marker from Neku’s pocket. Sora signed with a crown, and Neku’s signature looked like a little cartoon of the back of his hair, with eyes and feet.

“That’s so cute!” Sora said, leaning over Neku’s shoulder.

“I made it when I was like, 11, okay?” Neku said, as if he had to defend a design he liked enough to be using all these years later.

They packed the empty spray cans back into the duffle bag, which Neku then pulled over his shoulder. Sora returned the CAT pins to Neku’s grateful hands, and they left the few cans that still had paint in them lined up along the wall, ready for other artists.

“We should get breakfast!” Sora said, almost bouncing.

Neku sighed as he switched his cell phone off of ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. It immediately started buzzing with missed notifications. “I should get going, there’s… stuff I need to take care of.”

Sora deflated. “But… I mean, I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t have to leave this time.” He gestured to Neku. “You stayed and didn’t phase out of wherever-this-is, all night! And I could touch you this ti—”

“It’s not like that, Sora,” Neku cut in. “I just… I need to go now, okay?”

Sora wasn’t happy, but he didn’t argue. “Okay.”

 

So Sora got breakfast, alone. He wasn’t sure what Riku and Yozora were doing, but Sora figured he wouldn’t be very helpful to them until he’d gotten some food in his stomach. He’d been so entranced by Neku’s painting that he hadn’t eaten in hours, which meant the food he’d picked up was enough for four people. The person at the crepe stand had given him a dirty look, but she’d probably just been having a bad day.

As Sora was biting into his second-to-last crepe, his phone started vibrating.

His _phone?_

Sora set the food down and pulled the red cell out of his pocket. It wasn’t a mission notification, it was actually _ringing._

He picked it up. “…Hello…?”

“Sora, are you all right?” It was Neku. Sora pulled back the phone, examining it like it might be broken. Neku was calling him? Neku could _call him?_

_“Sora! Sora?”_

He brought the phone back to his ear. “I’m fine, Neku! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You haven’t… seen anything?”

Sora took a thoughtful bite. All he could see were people everywhere, ignoring him like usual. “I… don’t get what you mean.”

“Someo—some _thing_ is creating a new kind of Noise,” Neku said, trying to keep his voice level. “If they come after you, you _call me._ Got it?”

“G-Got it.” Things had been fine an hour ago when Neku had left. What had happened? “Are you okay, Neku?”

“Yeah, look—I’ve gotta go, Sora. Be careful.”

“You too, Neku!” But he had already hung up.

 

Sora cautiously finished his crepes, all the while keeping his eye on the Shibuya crowds to watch for unexpected Noise. Yesterday, he’d fought them by finding their symbols drifting around the city. They were all over, especially around landmarks or places where there were a lot of people, but he could only see them when he focused. It felt like flipping his mind to another channel, or putting on the AR visor that Hiro had made him.

He tried that now, picturing a lens coming over his eyes, but the Noise he saw weren’t any different from before—just weird symbols hovering around the street.

Neku hadn’t said what the new Noise looked like, or where they might come from, but Sora did notice something different about Shibuya.

Everyone seemed to be upset. The formerly neutral expressions of people on their way around the city were being replaced by scowls and frowns, and mixed in with the din of the city, Sora heard the occasional discordant sounds of people arguing with each other. What was going on?

Sora’s phone buzzed, making him jump. He pulled it out, wondering if Neku could text him now too, and flipped it open to find the day’s mission mail.

_Wipe out the Despair Noise._

“They already have a name?” Sora didn’t like the sound of it at all. He checked his hand for a timer, but there wasn’t one. “No time limit?” What did _that_ mean?

Riku would be expecting a timer to know when Sora’s mission kicked off. He’d have to tell him there wasn’t one.

Sora tuned himself to the Noise channel, but this time he noticed something else there. Red and black tatters danced on the fringes of his sight, like there was a curtain obscuring it. Sora knitted his brows together, and concentrated his imagination on pulling that curtain away. His hands kept slipping through it, but eventually, something caught.

Sora grinned, and tugged.

As the Noise channel unfolded into another layer, his ears were immediately filled with a loud buzzing, and his vision opened into chaos.

Twisted Noise symbols filled the world, red ink blooming angrily from inside black borders. Negativity pulsed from within them to hit Sora’s chest in heavy waves.

_Despair._

Sora wanted to leave, to shove the curtain back across his eyes and run. But he had a mission.

So before he could convince himself not to, Sora pushed his hand out to touch the closest symbol, and phased into battle.

 

The place he dropped into was still in Shibuya, he knew, but it was… wrong. Everything was made of abstract shapes that crackled with distortion and static. It was a layer beneath everything else, where things stopped making sense.

The Noise here were different too. They weren’t any animal Sora could recognize, with spindly little bodies and pointed horns, and they didn’t even seem interested in him as they milled around, bright yellow eyes seeing nothing. Their bodies were so pitch-black that they stood out even in the strangely dark light, and their inky lines were all a shocking blood-red.

“Partner?” The trepidation in Riku’s voice came through, even though sound didn’t seem to be working quite right.

“Here!” Sora called. “Sorry, I, uh… I’m supposed to fight a different kind of Noise today.”

“Where are we…?” Riku asked anxiously. He didn’t like being here any more than Sora did. “Tch!” Sora felt something bite Riku. “W-What are these?”

Sora had no idea. They seemed to be attacking Riku, but they didn’t even notice that he was here. “They’re called Despair Noise! This is where they come from, I guess!”

“And your mission is to fight them?” Riku seemed to be warming up to the idea.

Sora nodded, then realized Riku wouldn’t be able to see. “Yeah! I think it’ll fix things!”

“Then let’s go.” Sora pictured Riku taking his favorite stance—keyblade raised, free hand out as if beckoning his opponent, daring them to try and best him. This mission was in the bag.

Sora summoned a Fira to try to get a better look at the creatures, but as soon as he did, the rest of them turned their eyes on him like he was their latest snack. “Yikes.” He’d been half-hoping they’d just keep ignoring him, but of course it couldn’t be that easy. It was time to stop holding back, and fight.

They started the fight in earnest, and once he and Riku had cleared the field of Despair Noise, there was a long, anxious moment where Sora began to worry that they wouldn’t be shifted back this time. But then the strange plane began to flicker away, until his feet dropped back onto the normal Shibuya sidewalk.

 

Sora and Riku continued to battle throughout the morning. As copious as the Despair Noise were, most of them weren’t that hard to defeat. If they didn’t get cornered by a swarm of them—which had happened, and was maybe one of the most terrifying experiences of Sora’s life—they could be taken out fairly easily.

“Have you figured out who’s making them?” Riku asked in their next battle.

That was right. Noise came from negative emotion. Sora had seen some pop into existence when a store employee started yelling at a cyclist for knocking over a display. But what could have this much darkness and despair? “I don’t know… A lot of the people here are in a bad mood, but I don’t think they’re _creating_ these, exactly?”

“You mean you don’t have Reapers?”

Sora’s eyes went wide. _“Reapers?”_ That didn’t sound good. That sounded really bad.

“They’re the ones who summon the Noise.” Was _that_ why Riku’s Noise were so strong? “They wear black and have black wings that look like they should be on Noise.”

Sora had seen wings like that in Neku’s mural. But why hadn’t he seen any in person, if they were part of Games?

He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone like that in Shibuya…”

“Well keep your eyes open, and _be careful.”_ The words hardly sounded any different than they had all the other times Riku had said them. He was the same old Riku.

“…Hey, Riku?” Sora bit his lip.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember when we tried to climb the paopu tree with our eyes closed, but I got a concussion, and—“

“Do I remember… your name?” Riku tried. “Are you trying to say your name again? It’s all… cutting out.” Riku’s voice had dropped, right along with Sora’s heart.

He sighed, then brought a smile back to his face. “Yeah, I just thought I’d try again.”

He hadn’t gotten through yet, but he would. He would.

 

By midday, Sora was getting tired of fighting the Despair Noise. Not that they were difficult on their own, but they came in endless torrents and floods and he and Riku didn’t seem to be making any sort of dent. And every once in a while, they’d run into an unusually large one, or a massive swarm. He had to find the source soon.

If the Noise were being created by some _body_ —a Reaper—rather than some _thing,_ they sure had a lot of energy. Why were they only showing up now?

Riku had suggested that Sora try to find the part of the district where the most Despair Noise were showing up—their most likely origin. They’d narrowed it down to Scramble Crossing, the same place Sora had first landed in Shibuya.

There were a lot of people there, which could be acting as some sort of magnet for the Noise, but as much as he tried, he still couldn’t catch the layer of reality where they were actually _coming_ from. Sora was also certain that he would be able to spot someone with _wings,_ and there was no one.

He raised his gaze up to the 104 building, half-expecting some villain to be perched up there, watching him. No one. This was getting frustrating.

Sora sighed and looked down, spotting the skull pin he still kept on his shirt. An idea popped into his head. If he couldn’t figure out how to tune himself to whatever was creating the Noise, he might just need some help.

He slowly brought his fingers to the pin, bracing himself for the flood of thoughts, but it didn’t come. He could only hear one thing, drowning out everything else.

Laughter.

In his voice.

Manic and cruel.

Everything clicked into place in a sudden, shocking instant.

“Vanitas!” Sora yelled. The word echoed back at him, tangled in the laughter.

From the darkness, hands grabbed his shoulders, and he felt the familiar shift to a different plane. Sora was tossed to the ground. It was the same plane he’d been fighting the Despair Noise in. He’d phased them both here, somehow.

Vanitas was standing over him, still cackling, but quieter, clearly trying to hold back his delight. The helmet was gone, his twisted copy of Sora’s face on full display.

Sora’s pulse sped up. He already knew Vanitas had his face, he told himself. It was no big deal. He had seen it before.

What he hadn’t seen, were the wings.

Black, webbed wings were growing from Vanitas’ back. They looked like they belonged to Noise, and now that Sora was seeing them in person, they looked like they belonged to Vanitas, too. They were like sharp, twisted cages, and they suited him.

_A Reaper._

Vanitas had yet to stop laughing. Finally, Sora found his voice and struggled to his feet. “What’s so funny?!”

Vanitas cradled his face in his hands like he was t _rying_ to stop, but every time he seemed about to pitter out, he’d just burst again.

It was starting to freak Sora out. “Hey, are you… Are you okay?”

“I… I’ve—“ Vanitas was managing to fit some words in. “Never be— never been _better!”_ He dissolved again.

“Hey! _Hey!”_ Sora yelled. “How did you get here? What are all those Noise?”

Nothing but cackling. Sora was getting fed up. He stomped up to Vanitas, ready to shake his shoulder, but the other teen slapped Sora’s wrist away before he had the chance.

It had the desired effect, though. The laughter stopped. Vanitas took a deep breath in through his teeth. “ _Sora,”_ he said, savoring the name like he was about to eat it, with eyes wide enough to see the whites. “It’s so good to see you.” Maybe the laughter was better after all.

“Wh-What are you _doing_ here?” Sora managed. He hadn’t seen Vanitas since… since…

“I told you I was your shadow. What could I do but follow you _into oblivion?”_ He said the last two words with particular relish.

The way Vanitas talked always chilled Sora’s bones. His voice was like a broken recording, playing Sora’s back at him, all wrong.

“What are you doing to the Game?” Sora asked.

“You want to play games, Sora?” Vanitas spread his gloved arms open wide. “I’m already having the time of my _life._ Life. Hah!” He let out another burst of laughter, but managed not to lose himself again.

“Are you the one making all the Despair Noise?” Sora said, with more courage than he felt.

Vanitas drew in a deep breath, as if the strange air here was the cleanest he’d ever tasted. His eyes were unfocused, distant. “They don’t come back.”

The words terrified Sora. What had Vanitas _done?_ Who had he hurt? “Who doesn’t come back? What did you do?!”

He merely repeated himself, and Sora wondered if Vanitas had even heard him. “They don’t. Come back.”

“Who doesn’t—“

Vanitas cut him off, stepping closer with that wild look in his eyes. “I’ve been killing them all day, and none of them come back!”

It was too much. Sora staggered backwards. “Stay away from me!”

“Fear, anger, rage, _despair_ —I can let it all out, and _none of it comes back!”_ Vanitas yelled, euphoric.

The air around Vanitas crackled with a pulse of static as that same wave of negativity hit Sora’s chest. Static fragments drifted together, flickering until the red lines of Despair Noise symbols lit up the dark. The air hummed with them, and Sora turned to see that they were _everywhere._

Vanitas called his keyblade, and held it aloft. Sora knew he couldn’t take him, not without the keyblade, not with magic alone. He’d let Vanitas scare him, distract him, and now he was trapped. How could he be so stupid?

Vanitas summoned a massive beam of energy and brought his keyblade down, cackling. Sora only just managed to duck and roll, but with how close the two of them were, he wouldn’t be able to keep dodging much longer.

Then Vanitas’ keyblade burst with a sustained beam that he sprayed horizontally. It missed Sora entirely. What was he even aiming at?

From all around him, Sora heard crashing, like the world was falling to pieces. He turned. All of the Despair Noise symbols Vanitas had just summoned were disintegrating, bursting back into static. Meanwhile, Vanitas had thrown his head back, laughing with even more fervor than before.

Sora’s mind started working again, pushing through his fear. Vanitas hadn’t been talking about killing _people_ —he was talking about the Despair Noise. He was the one creating them, and… he’d been destroying them, just like Sora and Riku had?

Vanitas wheezed in a breath, then turned to Sora, as if only just remembering he was there. _“Sora,”_ he said, almost hissing on the s. “Is this what it feels like?”

He’d lost him again. “W-What _what_ feels like?”

Vanitas paused, squinting like he couldn’t find the right word. “…Painlessness?” he said almost breathlessly. After another deep inhale, he closed his eyes and tipped his head back, hands suspended beside him, like he was standing in the rain, letting the drops sink into his skin.

It made Sora’s heart clench. Had Vanitas really not known what it was like to… to not be in pain? Was that what he had been fighting on his own, all alone with his broken heart? Sora brought a hand to his own. Ventus had had him all those years, but what had Vanitas had? He said he’d chosen to become darkness, but living like that, with no one and nothing but pain, what other option could there be?

“Making these Noise… is helping you?” Sora asked, cautiously. If it was true, then he could fight as many as it took.

Vanitas’ focus shot back to him, reverie broken. “More than you _or_ Ventus ever did.” He grinned, showing too may teeth.

Sora nodded, resolved. Vanitas was still just as terrifying, but at least Sora was starting to understand why. “I’ll keep fighting too.”

Vanitas’ eyes flashed with confusion, then suspicion. “You’ll. _what.”_ The words came out short, locked behind his clenched teeth.

“I’ll fight them too!”

Vanitas wrinkled his nose, baring his teeth. He stepped close enough for Sora to feel the negativity still leaking out of him, and brought his voice low. “These monsters are _mine_ to slaughter." He leaned back, cruel eyes gleaming in the low light. “Understand? I don’t _need_ any _help._ Especially not from _you.”_

He shoved Sora’s chest, though not hard enough to push him over. “I don’t need you OR Ventus to fix me—not anymore. Now _get out.”_

Sora wanted to bring up that from what he could remember, Vanitas was the one who had pulled _him_ into this plane, but before he could say anything more, Vanitas gave him another shove, and Sora found himself tumbling back onto the Scramble Crossing asphalt.

A delayed shiver ran through him. For a while he just laid there, looking up at the sky.

Did he… _have_ to tell Neku about this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he doesn’t even go here and he definitely doesn’t know what game everyone’s playing  
> ([Reaper Vanitas](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1109593034772013056))
> 
> just sora’s side this time bc  
> me, a fool: hey what if vanitas was in the game  
> me 3k words later: heh nice
> 
> he’s fine. he’s fine. it’s fine
> 
> Also, thank you for 150 kudos guys! I've been having so much fun writing this!  
> Bonus: [Neku's signature](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1109289819115405312)


	9. Day 3 - Bearer

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora was in hell. Well, he had already been in hell for the past 5 or 6 days, but this was a different kind of hell. One where you kept catching the feelings and memories of two other teenagers in love, like some twisted third wheel. The Riku and partner parts of him weren’t embarrassed by the flirting, the waves unconditional love and support, but the Yozora parts of him _were._

Spite, rage, despair? He’d gotten used to dealing with those.

But love? That was the last thing he had been expecting to find here, and the two of them reeked with it.

He pinched between his eyes. Riku was in a fight right now, and Yozora could feel the twinge of excitement, the exhilaration Riku felt when he was near his partner. He could feel Riku’s partner smiling back at him.

Why were they so different from the others? The Game took people’s love for each other. It took their control, their trust, their minds. It took everything, and yet _these two_ were carrying on like it was all just a splinter in their thumb.

 

Riku phased back, that _look_ lingering on his face for a few moments before he remembered Yozora was there, and turned to him.

“My partner still hasn’t seen anyone like the Reapers.”

Yozora groaned. Why couldn’t he have died, what, 4 kilometers away? “Figures. _We’re_ playing on hard mode, but it looks like your partner is set to _easy.”_

Riku folded his arms, frowning. “Why hasn’t he seen anyone? _Someone’s_ got to be running things over there. If only to keep things from spiraling out of control. It wouldn’t be so ‘easy’ otherwise.”

“Maybe Shibuya is being run by _Angels_ instead of Reapers,” Yozora said, rolling his eyes.

Riku flexed his hand, checking his damage from the last battle. It was almost midday now, and Riku’s partner had been pulling him into battle near-constantly. The fights were easy, though, so a lot of flirting was probably going on.

“Are you guys making any progress?” Yozora asked, glancing between Riku’s hand and face.

“I… He said he thinks about me, and I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that we’ve met, and—“

“I mean with the Despair Noise,” Yozora deadpanned.

Riku averted his eyes, flushing. “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “…Not any progress that I can tell. For all we know, there are oceans of those things.”

Great.

Riku looked back at him. “What about you? Are you holding up?”

 

Yozora had agreed to fight any Shinjuku Noise that came after them so that Riku could focus on the mission, and with as much as he was getting called by his partner, he wasn’t very useful anyway. Unfortunately, Yozora taking on the bear yesterday had shaken Riku, and he’d tried to stabilize him after every battle since. But Yozora could only stand so much Riku pouring into him in one day. The last time it had happened about an hour ago, he’d had slapped Riku’s hand away, stinging him with latent electricity.

“StOp it!”

“But—“ Riku cradled his stung hand.

“I ddon’t nEed it _every time!_ JUst _give me a sec,_ okkay?”

Riku had held himself back since then, with the concession that he _would_ step in the next time it got _bad_ bad.

 

“…Yeah. I’m fine,” Yozora replied. He was surprised to realize that it wasn’t a lie.

With so much back-and-forth between Riku and his partner, Yozora was actually finding it easier to stabilize. He’d never been around a pair for so long, and there was so much… good energy to draw from that healing was becoming easier every time he did it. Fighting the bear had taught him, too, that he lost himself less when he focused his thoughts on Riku and his partner. He didn’t want to admit it, and he absolutely never would in person, but they had become—

A nearby chorus of ribbits interrupted his thoughts.

Yozora let out an extended groan. The frogs were so slimy.

Riku turned from where the Noise were coming from and gave Yozora a concerned look. “Are you _sure_ you don’t want me to—“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Yozora said grumpily, waving vaguely at Riku as he stepped forward.

This battle was going to be the one.

Yozora entered the battle plane, and let out a quick blast of fire to scatter the frogs away from him. He needed time.

Yozora squared his feet, and took several deep breaths. Then he closed his eyes, and called the keyblade.

In the aether of wherever it slept, he felt it, barely, as if it had brushed his fingertips. Not yet.

He’d been trying this ever since he’d gotten Riku’s memories. He knew how it worked, how to do it. No one had chosen him, no one had told him a little poem, but he was reflecting a Keyblade Master and whatever Riku’s partner was, and that had to count for something.

The frogs hit him with a torrent of bubbles, and he sent them flying back with another blast of fire. A puddle of tadpoles burst into static.

He could do this. He took his stance again, then tried something different. He planted his legs apart and raised his left hand in front of him, right arm suspended above. Like Riku. He called it again.

It slipped through his fingers. _“Ugh!”_

A frog got close enough to latch onto his leg, then ricocheted, sending him off balance. He could already feel himself getting damp. He was _not_ going to start spitting bubbles.

Deep breaths didn’t help. He was beginning to panic, and his focus was crumbling. Meanwhile, the frogs were getting testier, and they were getting closer. Tadpoles were swirling around his shoes now—some of them starting to slide up his boots—and the rest of the Noise were getting ready to frogpile him.

He was not turning into a frog. _He was not turning into a goddamn frog._

The Noise made a coordinated leap, and something blasted them away in a sudden flash of red light.

Through a daze, Yozora focused his eyes at the thing that had appeared in his hand.

It was a keyblade.

He turned it over. It was lighter than he thought it would be—not the chunky metal of Riku’s, though it had metal parts. Its teeth were made of a sharpened, dark metal, and running down the length of the shaft was a red beam of light, like a laser saber from a video game. Below it, the hand guard looked—a little disconcertingly—like a Noise sigil, and a small glass keychain in the shape of a heart inside a starburst dangled from the base of the handle.

It was incredible, and Yozora hadn’t seen it _anywhere_ in Riku’s memories.

It wasn’t Riku’s.

It was his.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku’s partner entered the next battle with renewed energy. “Riku! We’ve gotta take care of these Noise!”

“I mean, yeah, that’s your mission, isn’t it?” Riku casually bat away a Despair Noise.

“But it’s more than that! It’s helping someone!”

Riku perked up. “Did you find someone else in your Game? Other than your friend?”

“Yeah! Well, he found me, and he’s been the one making them!”

If that was true, then… “Wouldn’t that make him a _Reaper?”_ Riku countered.

“Yeah, but it’s okay! I know him!” his partner said brightly.

“Partner, that doesn’t sound—“

“Before you say anything," his partner cut in, apologetic, "Just trust me—he’s been through a lot, and he just needs to let off some steam for a while! And if it’s already part of the mission, then what’s the harm?”

“There’s _plenty_ of—“ Riku stopped himself, and let out a breath. He wanted to trust his partner just as much as his partner trusted him. If the Shibuya Reapers had left him alone for so long, maybe they weren’t so bad over there. And until these Noise sprouted 8 more heads, they wouldn’t be much of a problem. “…All right. We’ll keep fighting them.”

“Thanks, Riku! You’re the greatest!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, suppressing a smile.

 

Riku was alone when he returned to Shinjuku. Yozora was still in battle, then. Riku took a seat on a curb to sift through his thoughts. His partner was so familiar with him, like they’d known each other before this. Or was he just… _like_ that? Was Riku _not_ special? He couldn’t doubt it.

More of his words had been cutting out, too, even though their link seemed to be getting stronger. The sentences didn’t make sense, either—if it was only his partner’s name, there wouldn’t be so much missing. Why had the Reapers taken so much? What had they… they…

Riku squeezed his eyes shut and put both hands to his head, trying to keep his focus. But it was gone.

 

Yozora reappeared, and stumbled. Riku quickly got up to check on him, setting his scattering thoughts aside. Yozora was a little dazed, but otherwise… Otherwise, he looked like he always did. Or, well, should. He wasn’t even glitching.

“What did you do?” Riku asked as he crouched next to him, genuinely curious.

Yozora was busy examining his shaking hands, marveling at their humanness. “I’m okay,” he said to himself, not answering Riku’s question.

Riku gave him a little time, then tried another approach. “Is it getting easier?”

Yozora looked at him, and for a moment both of his eyes were red. Then one flickered back to blue. “Yeah. Yeah,” he nodded.

 

Riku decided it was better not to press him, not after he’d snapped at him earlier in the day. But by all accounts, Yozora genuinely seemed to be getting better at it. As the day went on, he couldn’t hold himself together after every battle—there were still some that left him glitching on the concrete—but it became less frequent, and Riku noticed he’d stopped flinching every time Noise showed up.

They didn’t talk much for the next few hours—Riku was busy fighting Despair Noise, while Yozora was busy with his new confidence, but late in the day, Yozora spoke up.

“You should ask him to watch the stars with you.”

Both of them had been on edge for the past hour, waiting for the Reapers to put in an appearance. But all of the tension Riku had been holding suddenly evaporated.

“You mean like… on a date?”

Yozora gave a little smirk, and a little something that sounded like a laugh. Riku had been seeing more faces like that from him today. It was nice. “I mean, I might not use _that_ word right away, but…” Yozora tipped his head up to the sky. “…I think he’d like it."

He gestured around. “Not that there are a whole lot of stars in the middle of Tokyo,” he continued. “but the city lights, at least.”

Riku raised his head, imagining his partner looking up at that same sky, and felt a longing too deep to fathom.

“Riku, have you thought any more about what they took?”

Yes. All the time. He’d managed to find a few more gaps, but every time he tried to hold his mind on them, start digging, his focus would dissipate like a radio signal fading away. It was agonizing.

Riku’s brows knit together. “They won’t… let me.”

Yozora nodded slowly. “If I… said you—“ Yozora’s mouth kept moving, but the sound cut out as if Riku’s ears had been shut off. Why did _he_ have what Riku needed? Why did other people have what was supposed to be his?

Riku’s eyes pricked. He set his jaw and shook his head.

Yozora stopped, gaze drifting to the ground.

“You’ll remember, Riku.”

 

**— >>SORA**

Riku seemed nervous during their next fight. He kept starting sentences and then trailing off in the middle, like he couldn’t get himself to finish them.

“Riku, is something wrong?”

“What? Oh, no—no no. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“You don’t… sound fine,” Sora said carefully.

“I mean I was just… I was just thinking, that if you’re not doing anything later, maybe—“

Sora’s face spread into an impish grin. “Riku… are you asking me on a date?”

“I-I might not use that word right away, but, ah—“ Sora could hear him losing his nerve, so he threw him a bone.

“I’d love to!”

He could feel Riku’s relief from here. “Oh! Wow. Okay.”

Silence began to set in again. He needed another lifeline. “What did you want to do? Find some evening Noise to fight?”

“I was thinking we could watch the stars,” Riku said, brightening. “The city lights. Not _together,_ but… together.”

Stargazing. When had Riku gotten so smooth? Sora clutched a hand to his chest, smiling fondly. “That way, even if we’re thousands of miles apart, we’ll be looking at the same sky.”

“We’re… not _that_ far from each other,” Riku corrected.

Sora blinked, head bolting up. “What?”

“Shinjuku is 4 kilometers from Shibuya. About 2 miles…?”

“It’s WHAT?” Sora blurted.

“I assumed you knew!” Riku said, confused. “I can see Shibuya from the top of a skyscraper with two red lights. The wall is still there, but—“

Sora was having trouble listening. The way Neku talked about other Games, it had sounded like they were worlds away. “You’re _two miles away?_ ”

“I… yes?”

Sora blasted the Despair Noise they’d been ignoring, and phased out of battle.

 

He landed on his feet, and started running. He found the tallest building he could see, picked up speed, and ran straight up the side. He flipped onto the top, and spun himself around, looking for the building Riku had described. He stopped short.

It was there. The skyscraper with the two red lights, on top of two pillars piercing the sky. Close enough to touch. Sora’s chest swelled. “Riku.”

It shouldn’t be possible. Riku felt so much father away than that—Sora could hardly feel him at all. Outside of battle, reaching his heart was like yelling into a tin can stretched between islands in the ocean.

But he was _right there._

 

Sora cast magic on the wall that split the districts. On the ground, it was so thick he couldn’t see anything but distortions through it, but if Riku was on the other side, he would get through. He tried every spell he knew, and some he made up.

He blasted and pounded on the wall until he was trembling from the strain. Small spiderweb cracks were beginning to appear. He just had to keep hitting it. He brought his hand back again, but someone caught his wrist.

“That’s enough,” Neku said calmly, grip like a vice.

Sora turned, tears streaming down his cheeks. Strange shapes seemed to be floating in his vision behind Neku, but he didn’t care.

“I n-need to see Riku,” Sora sobbed. “He’s _right there._ If I could just get through—“ He pulled his free hand to start pounding on the wall again.

In an instant, he was on the ground. Sora blinked away his tears, shocked into calm.

Neku had him pinned down by his wrists, brilliant black wings breaking the sunlight into shards above him. “I… I can’t let you leave, Sora.”

It didn’t surprise Sora as much as he thought it would. It just made a simple sort of sense. The help with missions, the phone call. Aside from the strange man and Vanitas, the only other person inside the Game had been Neku.

Sora stared up at his friend, watching his expression falter, feeling his grip tighten to compensate. Neku needed time, and Sora didn’t try to move. “After Joshua left, I—I had to stay. I couldn’t just— Shibuya—“ he tried, but his breath hitched, and he couldn’t say any more than that.

Sora nodded his head ever so slightly, eyes still on Neku. He understood.

Neku drew in a shaking breath, clearly trying to keep his nerve. “You have to finish the Game, Sora. You have to… to…” He trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut.

Sora’s mouth trembled as he fought off tears. Neku was giving this Game everything he had, for the people he cared about. He couldn’t do any less. “Okay.”

“What?” Neku’s voice broke.

“Okay. I’ll stay.”

Neku leaned back to wipe at his face, knees still straddling Sora. “I _turn on you,_ and that’s all you h-have to say? You’re such an _idiot,_ Sora.”

“I was out of control,” Sora said quietly.

Neku got up off him, and turned away. Sora raised himself to his elbows, and got his first real look at the wings. They weren't like the ones on the mural. Instead of the pointy, metal fence-looking pattern, Neku's were an intricate tangle of inky arrows that faded away at the bottom.

"They’re pretty.”

Neku barked out a sob, or maybe a laugh.

“So you can put them away?”

Neku nodded, and they flickered out of view.

Sora got up, and brushed his hand through where the wings had been. He couldn’t feel anything, but Neku twitched like he had. He looked over his shoulder at Sora, eyes red.

“I lied to you. I’m sorry, I just—I wanted things to be—”

Sora just held his arms out again. In case Neku needed them.

“Sora, are you _kidding_ me?” he said, almost in a whisper.

He needed them more than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been thinking about how I basically 100% made up Yozora for this fic and now I’m really attached and giving him a keyblade. you’re doing great sweetie
> 
> on the other side, the composer’s proxy remains so
> 
> \---  
> There's a thread of art for this fic [here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)
> 
>  
> 
> [Yozora's Keyblade](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1110701547724234757)  
> [Neku's Wings](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1110702376514576384)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Btw thank you all for your comments—I’m so glad you liked the Vanitas art! As this fic goes forward, if you happen to draw/write/make anything related to it or expand on any of these ideas, please link/tag me! I’d love to see it all!


	10. Day 3 - Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a big cuss in this one, folks

**— >>SORA**

“Where are all the Reapers?”

“They have the week off.”

“They’re on _vacation?”_

The two of them were sitting down near Hachiko, where Neku had been begrudgingly answering Sora’s questions for the past 15 minutes. He was starting to get tense, like a cat after one too many pets, but Sora had one more question to ask.

“Why aren’t there other players?”

Neku became very interested in fiddling with his wristband. “Players are put in stasis until there are… enough of them, to run a Game. I… decided to put you in early, by yourself, while we figured things out. I thought I could partner with you, but, well. You obviously had something else in mind.”

Sora’s face dropped. He would have liked to have spent the week with Neku, but if Neku was the one giving the missions… “Would that have been fair? To the other players?”

“Well then,” Neku snapped. “There’s at least _one_ mistake I didn’t get to make.” He turned his eyes to the ground, glaring at a discarded can.

Sora remembered when he’d first woken here. Neku had been so mad at him, but… he’d been upset about something else, too. As difficult as it had been without the keyblade, without Riku knowing him, these past few days—Sora’s being here—had to have been even harder on Neku.

They were quiet for a while, but Sora knew it was his turn.

“Neku… Since you told me your secret—“ Sora began.

“Not how I would describe it,” Neku interrupted.

“—I figured I should tell you mine.”

Neku didn’t move. “What secret could you possibly have that even compares to what I—“

“You’ve… been trying to find the source of the Despair Noise, right?”

His head shot up. _That_ had gotten his attention.

“ I… might know who’s making them.”

Neku frowned. _“Talk.”_

Sora told Neku about Vanitas, glossing over the details of what exactly he was or how he’d come back from… wherever he’d ended up, since Sora didn’t understand that himself. Neku’s face was twitching with emotions Sora couldn’t quite nail down—a lot that scared him—but he kept going.

“I think he… followed me, in here? But maybe he couldn’t, um, manifest, until now?”

Neku finally turned away, pinching between his eyes. “Well, it’s… _he’s,”_ Neku corrected, “been running through the planes like a rat in the vents. I haven’t been able to catch him, or even _find_ him.” He gathered himself with a long breath. “And you’re telling me he just came out and _talked_ to you?”

“I think he wanted to see me?” Now that he’d gotten some time to think about it, Sora _had_ begun to wonder why Vanitas had pulled him in, especially since it seemed that he hadn’t planned to actually _do_ anything. Had he just wanted to taunt Sora? Or show off? “We have some… history together? He looks just like me, only with _black_ hair, and I don’t really get it but—”

Neku put his hands up, finally having had enough. “Don’t care. How do we get _rid of him?”_

Sora grimaced. “I mean… do we _have_ to get rid of him right now…?”

“Sora…” Neku warned.

“He’s got a lot of bad stuff in him now, but he just needs some time to let it out!” Sora insisted. “He needs our help!”

Neku deadpanned at him, blatantly unconvinced.

“Plus— _plus_ —he’s been killing them too! He wants to get rid of the Despair Noise just as much as we do!”

“Sora, he’s been giving everyone in Shibuya seasonal depression. The next time you see him, you _call me_ or you _stop him.”_

Sora folded his arms stubbornly. “I’m not doing anything that’ll hurt him! He’s been through enough!”

Neku gave a prolonged groan and stood up, all in one exasperated motion. “Fine. You know what? Fine!”

He turned and pointed down at Sora, like a parent scolding a child. “But your mission hasn’t changed. And if he sets foot outside the Noise planes, he’s _mine.”_

 

Neku left. It was a bit of a relief. There had been a shift between them, Sora knew. They weren’t enemies—Neku could never be his enemy—but they couldn’t be friends right now, either. Once this was all over, things could go back to the way they were. Sora would make sure of it.

Right now, though, he needed a distraction. Sora tuned to the Noise plane. He had an answer for Riku.

 

**— >>RIKU**

“Riku!” his partner called as Riku felt relief wash over him.

“Partner!”

He’d ended the last battle so suddenly that Riku had started to panic. He’d said yes to _a_ date, but not yes to _the_ date, and it certainly hadn’t helped Riku’s anxiety any when Yozora had nearly broken down sobbing about 20 minutes after his partner had left the last battle. Had Riku done something wrong? Had something happened? Had it all been a stupid idea? He’d been pacing around, asking himself those questions, and many more, until Yozora had swore at him and said, _“He’s busy, okay?”_

“Sorry for getting distracted,” his partner said apologetically.

“What’s wrong?” Riku pressed. “What happened? Yozora… said you were really upset.”

“O-Oh… he could feel that?” He sounded ashamed. “It was… It doesn’t matter now.”

“Was it about me?” Riku asked, still worried he’d upset him somehow. Maybe he was taking things too fast, and his partner was just too nice to say no. “We don’t have to watch the stars, I just thought—“

“No! I mean, yes—“ his partner stammered. “Look, I’m fine now, Riku! And I _do_ want to watch the stars with you, I just… I realized I forgot to ask what time.” He could hear his partner’s smile returning.

Riku’s heart was in his ears. “Is… 10:00 okay?”

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Riku was on cloud nine when he phased back from battle. For a while there, Yozora thought Riku was going to have an aneurism waiting for his partner to return his calls. It had sure taken him long enough to say yes.

That wasn’t fair, though. Riku’s partner had been… loud, today. Upset. And since Yozora had started using the keyblade—which was going _amazing_ —he’d felt even more connected to the both of them than usual. Though, that had come with its own ups and downs, he’d discovered, when Riku’s partner had had a meltdown that had sent Yozora plunging into tears, which had in turn put Riku on a path to his own sort of meltdown, and all three of them had nearly ended up in a recursive loop.

He hoped the “date” would help things.

“Riku,” Yozora said carefully. “Are you sure you haven’t met him?” He’d been making more attempts to get through the spam filter today. It wasn’t easy.

Riku shook his head. “No, it’s— I know he knows _me,_ but I just can’t—“ He was spiraling again, like he did every time. A chronic over-thinker.

“Sometimes… when we try to grab at something too tightly, it slips away,” Yozora tried. “But if we stop _trying so hard,_ and just let things come to _us,_ maybe they will. Maybe something will stay, even just for a little while.”

Riku nodded slowly.

“In other words: _Calm. Down.”_

 

The now-happy couple fought more Despair Noise, going at it with gusto, like they both wanted to make the time go faster. Yozora kept his eyes out for Haru and Ume, but they never came. Eventually, the time was close enough for them to head back to the skyscraper, their little beacon in the night.

“Did you want to—“ Riku attempted, as they passed inside. “I mean, are you going to be okay if I—“

“Go on, idiot.” Yozora said, reclining himself onto a couch in the lobby. “He’s waiting for you.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku sat stiffly on the roof of the skyscraper. This had been a bad idea. What was he even supposed to do? They weren’t in battle, so it wasn’t like they could talk to each other. Which way should he be facing? Should they be facing each other to look at each other, or the same way to look at the same part of the sky?

“I’m no good at this.” Riku laid back on the roof, staring blankly above.

He tried to imagine his partner next to him. What would he say?

“…I wish you were here. I wish we didn’t have to… to _pretend_ to be together.”

Riku sighed. “I wish this was easier.”

It really was hard to see the stars here in the middle of the city. A satellite drifted by above him, like a sluggish falling star. Had his partner seen the same one?

On Destiny Islands in the summer, the night sky would practically be alight with falling stars—real ones. When he was little, he used to imagine getting a rope just long enough to lasso one, and then they’d tie it to a boat, unfurl the sails, and let it pull them into the sky. Him, Kairi, and…

“…Hey, partner, have you ever seen a falling star?” Silence was his only answer. He wasn’t any good at this.

 

Riku heard the roof door open and quickly sat up, worried it might be trouble, but it was only Yozora.

“Oh! You startled me.” Riku turned back to the sky, listening to Yozora’s steps come closer. “I thought you said you were going to sit this out.”

Yozora said nothing and hopped down on Riku’s left, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged.

“I know this has been… weird, for you, but I just… Thank you.” Riku had planned to stay here alone, but the roof was emptier than he’d anticipated. And there was only so much you could say to someone who couldn’t hear you back. He a little relieved to have someone next to him.

But Yozora was still quiet. Riku glanced over. His face was tilted up to the sky, blue eye wide and bright, like he could see all the stars in the universe.

“Yozora…?”

He didn’t seem to hear.

_“Yozora.”_

Riku waved a hand in front of his eyes. Nothing.

A smile broke across Yozora’s face, pure and unrestrained. Something was clearly wrong with him. Riku was about to turn and shake his shoulder when Yozora broke the silence.

“Hey, Riku.” His voice sounded somehow boyish. Familiar. “I made it.” He pulled his knees up and folded his arms on top of them, and let out an almost contented sigh. He sounded like…

Riku’s mind swam as he sat there, transfixed. This _was_ Yozora, but… it wasn’t. It was his body, but it was like he wasn’t in it. Yozora stretched his legs out and leaned back casually, caught in the motions of someone else, a Game away.

“…Partner?” Riku inched closer. _“Partner?”_

He received no answer, just that beautiful blue eye turned towards the sky.

Riku unclenched his hand, brought it up to Yozora’s face, then quickly drew back, remembering what would happen if he touched him.

For a while he just stared at his partner—at Yozora, he had to remind himself—as he looked up at the stars. There was so much love and wonder in his face.

Riku turned to the sky, trying to find the beauty his partner saw in the light-polluted night. Looking out of the corner of his eye, he realized he could see _him._ His partner, smiling at the sky, a district away. Beauty, right beside him.

Riku felt something warm brush his fingers, and looked down. Yozora had brought his hand to Riku’s. He watched in awe as their fingers laced together, then quickly glanced up to Yozora’s face, expecting it to change into his own again. But nothing happened. That magnetic pull was gone, replaced with simple warmth.

Right now, Yozora was already someone else.

 

Riku wasn’t very good at talking to himself, but it turned out his partner was an old pro. “By the way, Riku, I had like, eight crepes this morning. You would have loved them.” He laughed. “We could have had an eating contest! That was the only kind of contest I could ever win at.”

He _knew_ he knew him. He knew this scene, even with everything wrong. Riku thought the pain of not remembering would be more than he could bear, but hearing his partner talk like this, it was like he wasn’t missing anything at all. He wiped his face. “Maybe I was just letting you win.”

“…Hey, Riku?” He didn’t need to get his attention. Riku was hanging on every word. “…I wanted to say I’m sorry. If I hadn’t—“ His mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. “—you wouldn’t be here.”

“It’s okay,” Riku said. His eyes wouldn’t stay dry. “It’s okay.”

 

His partner kept talking, and Riku kept pretending to answer. He started to forget where they were, instead imagining them sitting on the sands of Destiny Islands, watching the stars from the beach, where entire galaxies were on display. They were together, and everything was perfect.

Soon, his pounding heart was the only thing he could hear in the depths of the night. Riku drew a hand out and brought his fingers softly to his partner’s chin, and turned his face toward him. To his surprise, he turned, blue eye searching for something it couldn’t find.

But there beside it, Yozora’s red eye lay open, glassy and unfocused. Riku’s stomach flipped.

“Riku…?”

Riku dropped his hand. He scrambled backwards and pulled his knees up to hug them, as if making himself smaller would be enough to hide him from his partner’s eye. What had he been _thinking?_ Yozora was still in there.

His partner—Yozora—looked around, but seeing nothing, shook his head like he was being silly, and turned his head back to the sky. Riku couldn’t see the red eye anymore, but he couldn’t forget it was there.

He didn’t know what to do. This was the closest he’d ever been to his partner, but what was happening to Yozora? What would happen if he didn’t stop it? How _could_ he stop it? They’d already touched, and nothing had happened.

Riku gathered his nerves and edged closer again.

“Yozora,” Riku pressed, with as much command as he could manage through his panic. _“Wake up._ Yozora!”

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora was on an island. He was sitting on a tree, looking out at the sunset over the water, his two best friends beside him. The remains of their latest raft lay scattered across the beach—another failure.

He glanced down to make sure Riku’s hand was in the right spot. Then carefully, casually, no big deal, he scooted his hand under Riku’s, and laced their fingers together. Riku let out a soft, startled sort of noise, which he quickly played off as a cough, turning his head away. But he didn’t let go.

He leaned on Riku’s shoulder, and after a moment, Riku rested his head on his.

There was soft pressure on his other side as Kairi leaned against him too. A little set of dominoes. “There’s always tomorrow,” she said.

“Unless Riku never figures out how to tie the ropes…” he said.

Riku chuckled. “Get real, Sora! As if you did anything but doze off…”

Sora.  
_Sora._  
_**Sora.**_

Yozora catapulted up, gasping for air like he’d been trapped underwater. He looked around frantically. Not sunset—night. On top of the skyscraper, and—Riku was sitting over him—and—he was crying? Why was he crying?

“Riku, what— what happened?”

Riku clasped a hand over his mouth, biting back a sob. “I thought you weren’t going to come back.”

Yozora blinked, still dazed. He caught something on the fringes of his vision. His arms felt heavy, but he raised one to brush a spike of his hair forward. It was hard to make out in the dark, but he knew what color it was. Chestnut brown.

A smile was spreading onto Yozora’s face. “This is what he looks like. Riku, this is what I—what he looks like.”

But Riku wasn’t looking at him. He should be looking at him. Wasn’t this what he’d wanted?

Riku put a hand over his eyes, hiding his face. “You almost—“

Yozora’s head was heavy with fog. But Riku was right here—they were together. It would all be okay.

“I tried everything,” Riku continued. “But you wouldn’t… Your—Your eye started turning blue, and I couldn’t get you to come _back—“_

“What? But I’m…”

Something distant twisted in his chest. Riku wanted him back. The rest of him. The other him.

He felt something dragging its way to the surface, but it kept getting pulled down. It was fighting so hard. Against him, he realized. He took one more look at Riku, then stepped aside to let it rise.

Yozora drew another breath, breaching another surface he hadn’t realized was there. He felt his body crackle as it snapped itself back together. It wasn’t pleasant, but the pain was a welcome sensation that told him he was back. The sound of the crackling had finally gotten Riku to look at him again, and the relief in his face was like dawn breaking.

“Riku,” he managed. At least his voice sounded all right, even though his heart was pounding in his ears. “What the _fuck.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d get that checked out, Sora is really contagious this time of year
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t have any art planned this time, but you can catch up on fic art [here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712) I have concept of Yozora's keyblade and Neku's wings from the previous chapter.
> 
> Also heads up: I've been on a Friday & Monday update schedule (which is pretty wild tbh), but I'm cutting back my pace a bit to refine the next parts! I'll likely be moving to weekly updates, either on Wednesdays or Fridays! Thanks for keeping up, everybody!


	11. Day 3 - Day END

**— >>RIKU**

Neither of them seemed to get hungry or thirsty here, but they needed something to return a little normalcy to the evening. Riku murmured copious apologies before using the bottom of a metal trash can to break the glass of a vending machine that they’d found inside a break room of the skyscraper.

“We definitely weren’t the first to think of this,” Yozora said, plucking a marble soda from the recently opened window of the machine. Miraculously, he was back to looking like himself—though with a marked brown tint to his light hair. Riku still wasn’t sure how he’d done it. _He_ definitely hadn’t been any help. “Wouldn’t happen if they’d just give us some money.”

“Maybe… Shinjuku just assumes they’ve got a vandalism problem.” Riku picked a coffee.

Yozora looked at the soda in his palm, like he was trying to decide if he actually wanted it, or if he’d just picked it because…

Riku held out the coffee. They traded.

Yozora downed the can, then took another.

The two of them sipped at their drinks in silence for a while.

Astoundingly, Yozora was the first one to say something. “I can hear him, a little, sometimes. But he was loud today. Wanting to see you.”

Riku winced. So this was his fault.

“If you’re about to blame yourself,” Yozora added, almost bored, “don’t bother.” He stared at his coffee can. “It’s not your fault if someone loves you like that.”

They were quiet.

“Yozora,” Riku started, juggling whether to look at him or not. “I don’t have to stay with you, if this is what’s going to happen. You’ll be all right on your own.“ Riku meant it. Yozora had fought so well today. Whatever he was doing, it _was_ working.

“If anyone else had pulled that shit,” Yozora said, ignoring the suggestion. “I’d be going after them myself. But I know he didn’t mean it. And besides, it’s not like it’s _actually_ possible to be mad at him.” He shook his head and scoffed. “I mean, did you see that face?”

Riku had. But he couldn’t think about that right now.

"That didn’t make it okay,” he said softly.

Yozora held his half-empty can with both palms. “When I’m near other Players, or Noise, eventually they start to seep into my head. They fill me up and make me someone else. At least with you two, it’s someone good.”

“But how long until you’re not you anymore?” Riku had raised his voice without meaning to. The things Yozora was saying were too close to the things he’d told himself, down there in the darkness. _I can take it. I won’t let it change me._

 _“You’re_ still here, aren’t you?” Yozora countered. “Besides, once we finish this Game for good, we’ll get back everything they took.” He held Riku’s gaze. _“Everything.”_

Riku turned away. He couldn’t stop remembering that glossy, blank eye. “What if you don’t make it til then?”

"I _will,”_ Yozora said angrily.

“Even if you aren’t—“

Yozora plunked his can down, clearly done talking. He headed toward the door. “I need some fresh air.”

Maybe that was best—if they were separated, at least for a little while. “Be careful.”

Yozora huffed, and closed the door behind him. Riku let him go.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

There were no Noise around outside, so Yozora settled for kicking over a trash can. Feeling angry was helping keep him from feeling helpless.

His head was still foggy from the… incident.

He’d been there, sort of, for some of it—Sora had sure liked those crepes—but the rest was just… gone, replaced with the vision on the island. A memory, probably. Sora had poured so much of himself into Yozora that he’d been brought to the brink of being overwritten, and he’d done it without even having to _touch._

What the hell was Sora made of?

Light. Boundless light. He understood what Riku saw in him now—really understood. Sora was a force of nature. A contagious smile, personified.

A smile that had nearly washed him away like footprints on the beach.

So how had he made it back?

Yozora had been on the island, looking at the water, but… he’d been beneath the water, too—trapped in the undertow, struggling to surface. Everything kept tangling around him, but it was warm, too, and in scattered moments, he’d considered just giving up, letting himself drift down into its balmy currents. But then he’d seen light, his way out, and he’d started fighting for it.

Then, suddenly, it was as if the waters just… gave up. Everything stopped resisting him, and he pulled himself back ashore.

Riku said he’d tried everything, and it wasn’t like any of the ghosts in Yozora’s head would ever want to lend him a hand. It had to have been Sora, letting him come back. For now. Yozora knew he hadn’t gone entirely—it felt more like he’d just pulled back. Sora had left something behind in Yozora’s heart, and it was still there, somewhere inside him.

 _Sora._ He had the name now. Was that what he’d wanted? Yozora to know his name? What was he supposed to _do_ with it? Tell it to Riku? ‘Cause _that_ had been going so well.

Yozora gave the trash can another kick, and yelled something at it. He could use some emotions that were _his_ right now.

“Aww, did you and your little crush have a falling out?”

“Isn’t he _with someone_ already…?”

Perfect.

He spun to see Haru and Ume, his frustration quickly rising to fury in his chest. Their hoods were down, faces exposed for the first time since they’d taken his entry fee. It was a threat. One that said this was the last night they’d see each other. Haru’s dark undercut hadn’t changed, and Yozora remembered the scar across Ume’s cheek. But just like before, it was their eyes that got his attention. Both of them were mismatched—one dark brown, and one bright blue with a slitted pupil, like they’d _traded._

“We honestly thought one of you would have been erased by now,” Haru said, arm wrapped around Ume’s waist. “I mean, after what happened to all the other Players…”

“And we can’t give you another to _play_ with until you’ve broken this one…”

Yozora ground his teeth. So that was it—why there hadn’t been any more Players since Riku. They’d been throwing them at each other like dogs in a pit, waiting until they turned on each other. And with everyone lacking the things they needed more than anything—with the promise they’d get them back if they _won_ —it hadn’t ever taken long.

“Those were people’s lives!” Yozora felt his eyes sparking.

Haru raised a hand to her ear comically. “What? I’m sorry, did you just say _lives?_ Or did you forget the part where you—and every other Player— _died?”_

“Players can’t be choosers…” Ume’s eyes drooped sleepily.

 _“We_ make the rules,” Haru went on. “We’ve been watching _everything._ And sooner or later, _parasite,_ your new little friend will find out what you’re capable of. What you’ve _done.”_

Yozora was worried that terror would dampen the rage he was fueling in his chest, but it continued to grow. Something about seeing their faces again kept his anger alight. “You didn’t give any of us a choice!” Yozora spat.

“You had plenty of choice…” Ume soothed. “You could have let them erase you.”

The night Riku was dropped, Yozora _had_ been ready to give up. If he was just going to be filled up with a new pair’s rage and despair until he couldn’t do anything but _hurt,_ then he didn’t want to last another day.

“Does your little friend know yet?”

“Why didn’t _you_ tell him?” Yozora rebuked, simmering. “You had tons of chances today.” Up until the _incident,_ the day had been… nice. The Reapers could have changed that in an instant by outing what he’d done. He told himself it had all been self defense, but…the version of Yozora that pervaded the memories inside him was something he’d probably try to kill too.

Haru twirled the end of Ume’s braid, frowning like she was disappointed. “Boss told us you needed some time to _mature_ before we could make an appearance and test you again.”

Yozora’s anger dipped into fear. They’d been ignoring them on purpose?

“You’ve been doing so well today, haven’t you…?” Ume crooned, smiling softly.

They _knew_. They had to know.

The keyblade. Just once, just _once_ in this place, he’d wanted _something_ to be his, but they were going to rip it away all over again. It wasn’t going to happen.

“Then do it,” he challenged through his teeth. _“Test me.”_

Yozora had wanted to give up that night, but then he’d met Riku—a good goddamn person—in this hell. They’d taken the thing Riku loved more than anything in the world, and still he hadn’t thought twice about helping someone he barely knew. Riku and Sora had given Yozora hope after a long chain of despair, and now, he wasn’t losing this Game for anything—not until he’d gotten them out.

Haru drew herself off of her girlfriend, tone playful. “You know, Ume said you wouldn’t last five days.” She brought a hand to her chest. _“I_ said you’d make it to 7. Isn’t that nice?” Haru turned to Ume quizzically. “What day was he on again, Ume…?”

"I’m not going anywhere until _you two_ are nothing but _static,”_ Yozora seethed.

“He really has grown a spine, now, hasn’t he?” Haru asked Ume, almost pouting.

Ume’s smile widened. “Let’s see what it takes to break it.”

 

For Haru and Ume, there was no use in splitting a Noise if Yozora was fighting alone, so instead they summoned two. By twining their hands together, the two symbols began to fuse into a level of monstrosity he’d yet to see. In other words, about what he’d expected.

It clawed itself from the concrete with dripping teeth and sharpened scales, but Yozora wasn’t afraid. If he couldn’t do this, then he hadn’t learned anything today, and he’d made it back for nothing. He phased in.

The Noise they had created was something like a cross between a great wolf and a snake—black and white as usual. Between its heavy, labored breath and enormous swishing tail, the massive thing seemed to shake the air itself.

Yozora called the keyblade, and it met his hand with an empowering warmth, like a baton passed between relay runners.

“Let’s go,” he dared.

The Noise was huge, but sluggish. It lumbered toward him in a serpentine motion, then spun to slash him with its tail. He leapt up, feeling the air whoosh beneath him, and spun to bring his keyblade down where the tail met the body. The keyblade practically danced in his hand, unleashing a flurry of swipes right at a break in the Noise’s scales. His body seemed to lift off the ground as he conducted it like an instrument, driving it home again and again.

The first few battles with it had been shaky—he’d nearly dropped it the first time, hands wet with frog slime—but once the keyblade had warmed up to him, it had felt like he’d been using it all his life. Or rather, the same two-or-so years Sora and Riku had, which doubled, made for nearly four.

As for whether it was making him more susceptible to Sora and/or Riku possession, that was something he’d have time to address after this Noise was wiped out.

Yozora pounced back, boots skidding on the pavement.

He couldn’t tell if he’d damaged the Noise yet, but he’d at least done enough to make it angrier. It swung its massive paw at him, and even though he rose his keyblade to block it, Yozora was knocked back and sent rolling. After getting some distance from the beast, he slammed the keyblade into the ground to stop his momentum, and pulled himself back up.

He spotted something on his arm, and looked down. His skin was starting to bud with dark scales. “Tch.”

The keyblade didn’t stop the pieces of Noise from leaking into him, but it did seem to distract them. It took a lot longer for him to turn, and he’d been able to use those windows to finish the Noise off today.

He turned back to the massive beast and its dripping fangs, and blasted it with fire. Haru and Ume had really _outdone_ themselves this time, and he wasn’t sure how quick he could make this. He knew a lot of moves, yeah, but the keyblade itself was still new.

The beast roared at him and made another swipe. This time, its tail connected with his side. He hissed in pain as the keyblade clattered from his hand, but he managed to pull off several coordinated rolls to regain some distance from it.

“Damn it…!” He’d been so eager for a fight, but the rage he’d been using as momentum was beginning to tick down. Now doubt was creeping in, and he wasn’t going to let it.

He held out his hand, and the keyblade returned easily.

It was his anchor here, holding him steady. He gripped its handle to shore himself. Sora and Riku had given it to him—well, sort of—and he couldn’t let them down now.

“We can do this,” he told himself, trying to calm his breathing. _“I_ can do this.”

For a moment, he thought he heard a voice, or an echo, but he was still alone. He heard it again, and realized it was coming from his hand. The keyblade was asking for something.

Strength.

Faith.

The will to overcome.

The promise to become whole.

Yozora gathered the pieces of his heart, closed his eyes, and he gave it all.

The keyblade let out a burst of red light, and time seemed to stand still. It began to split and fold, blossoming with glitches that shuddered through its shape until it separated into two pieces, which continued to change independently until they settled into their new forms.

He caught them in each hand. A crossbow made from the keyblade’s handle, and a glowing short sword made from the shaft. The sword flipped out like a kickstand. A _longsword._

Yozora grinned.

 

The new weapons sang in his hands. He strifed to the side, sending a flurry of ranged shots from the crossbow, then sprang forward to slash at the Noise with the longsword. It left bright, glowing slashes across the beast’s scales that lingered and burned, creating openings in its armor. He repeated the motions, ignoring everything else as he went at the beast again and again until it began to slow. Its attacks became delayed, off-mark. _He had it._

Almost on instinct, Yozora sprang into the air—higher than he’d thought possible. Time slowed once more as he brought his hands together, weapons colliding. They sprang apart again, and reformed into a _fourth_ weapon. The crossbow part lodged at the back end, while the length of the sword transformed into some sort of open gun barrel. The base of the crossbow settled onto his shoulder, and he brought his hands to its new grips.

Time was picking up again. Yozora set the Noise in the weapon’s sights, and pulled the trigger.

The keyblade—the crossbow rifle—let out an earsplitting laser beam that hit the great beast square in the forehead. Sound distorted as static ripped through the thing like a virus, rending its form apart. It burst in a blinding flash of light, and Yozora felt his feet touch the ground.

When the light dimmed, he was back on the street in Shinjuku, outside the skyscraper. Hands empty.

Yozora’s form jittered with glitches, but this time it felt more like he was hyped up on caffeine, instead of being pulled apart. He raised his trembling hands to check the damage. His fingers had turned into inky claws and he could feel the teeth in his mouth—old news, at this point—but the scales had swirled their way around both of his arms, jutting out like spikes. He’d been so focused on the keyblade’s transformation that he hadn’t been paying attention to the _other_ transformations, but with any luck, they’d all fade soon enough.

Then his weight shifted oddly, and he caught sight of something beside him. He turned to see a scaled Noise tail hovering from the base of his spine.

Yozora tipped his head back at the night sky and let out a silent breath, not even wanting to dignify _that_ with a reaction.

He spotted a bench like one he and Riku had talked on when he’d first arrived, and hopped on top of it, feet on the seat, like he had before. It wasn’t like he could sit normally right now anyway.

It would take some time for his form to settle, but the Reapers were gone, of course. Yozora wondered if they were still nearby, somehow watching. Maybe they never ever really left. He would have to tell Riku to be careful.

_You and your little crush._

He knew they’d said it to mess with him, and he knew they’d said worse, but he also couldn’t deny the feelings he’d been getting for Riku. How could he, when he couldn’t stop seeing what Sora saw in him?

Distantly, he recalled their fingers laced together on the roof. On the beach.

He knew there was nothing he could do about it. After all, it was impossible to know if the feelings were coming from everything Riku had done for him, or if they were just reflections—mirrored emotions from the two people he’d gotten tangled between.

Not to mention, Riku was too good for him. Tonight he’d fought to get him back, even though he could have had Sora—the one he’d actually been wanting since this all began. Yozora wasn’t sure he could have done the same.

So. They were perfect. He was there to help.

That was right. He had to find a way to get Sora’s name to Riku, through that thick skull. Yozora realized he hadn’t actually said it out loud yet, so he decided to test the way it felt.

_“Sora.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys I made a playlist of my oc yozora it's [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DpHAWensMpQ66ImgLew5M) and there's cussing in it so watch out
> 
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> [Haru and Ume](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1113930312843550721)
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> 
> Also: I went through and named the chapters more properly!! Hopefully that'll make navigation a bit easier.


	12. Day 4 - Yozora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well Sora, what _did_ you do?

**— >>SORA**

Sora turned, like someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around the restaurant, but it was pretty empty at this hour.

He’d felt weird about spending the night at Udagawa again, so he’d gone back to Sunshine Burger to grab a bite to eat. Before him sat an overloaded tray of food, and he was presently making his way through a mountain of fries. He’d pretty sure the employee had given him extra, after he’d come in blubbering.

The burger place was… normal, and he needed that right now. Tonight had been…

Sora had been sitting on top of a building in Shibuya, turned towards Riku’s skyscraper like they’d planned. It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice, considering the circumstances. Still, he’d wanted to _see_ Riku, to _be_ with him, and he’d had to settle for pretending.

His hand felt warm, picturing Riku’s in his, and the two of them “talked” for a while—Sora talking while he imagined all of Riku’s answers, the things he might say, but then…

Then Riku had touched his face. Familiar fingers gently turning his chin, and he’d felt it, no different than all the times it had happened before. Riku did it right before they kissed.

Had he remembered?

_“Riku…?”_

But then it was gone.

It _had_ been Riku, Sora knew. Sitting there together, but not together, they’d connected. A link had appeared between them, strung between Games.

After a little while, he’d decided to test the connection again, to find Riku in the night. He pushed out across this new thread, searching. Sora still couldn’t see Riku, as hard as he tried, but he knew some part of Riku was still near him.

_“Riku? Are you there?”_

Suddenly, Riku’s touch came again, shaking his shoulders. It was a panicked motion, nothing like the warm embrace Sora had been hoping for out there in the cold. Riku brought both hands to Sora’s face, and he froze up, panicked confusion creeping into his veins. His body had gone distant and numb. He couldn’t hear Riku, or see him, but something was terribly wrong.

Riku locked his hands on Sora’s shoulders, and lowered him to the ground. As his firm hands held him down, a strange realization dawned on Sora. Riku was trying to get him to leave.

So he left.

He’d let go of the thread, and Riku’s touch had disappeared like a tide receding from the beach.

Sora picked at his fries dully. He’d done something terrible, he knew it. It had to have been, for Riku to freak out like that. Sora hadn’t seen Riku through their connection, but had Riku seen him? Was there some… projection of him that had scared Riku so badly? For all he knew, with Riku’s… condition, Sora’s projection—or whatever—could have looked like a ghost without a face, or something even worse.

But… why had he touched his chin, like they were going to kiss?

It didn’t make any sense. Sora sniffed, and wiped his nose.

He could pull them both into the battle plane, tell Riku he was sorry, but it didn’t feel right to talk to him yet. How could he apologize when he didn’t even know what it was he’d done?

Maybe he could try again. If he wasn’t paying attention to… other things, this time, maybe he’d be able to figure out what he’d been _doing._ And he’d go gently, carefully this time, ready to explain, so that if he did find Riku, he wouldn’t freak him out.

Sora closed his eyes, there in the restaurant, and stretched out the reach of his heart.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Riku was guilty. Sora was moping. Yozora was...

Yozora didn’t know what he was anymore.

His form had settled again, mostly—the last segments of the tail had yet to go away—and he’d ventured a little ways from their skyscraper, but not far enough that he couldn’t see its lights. He didn’t want to stray too far from Riku, in case there was trouble.

He turned to look up at the flashing lights. The ones he’d been watching from, as the Reapers dropped players in. It had taken him too long to figure out what they’d actually been doing, and now eight people were gone forever.

Maybe that wasn’t entirely true—Yozora still had shards of them. Bad things, mostly. The surface-level stuff was always easiest to absorb. But there _were_ things that shone, even in so much mental wreckage. A pair’s first kiss. A surprise birthday party. A wedding. And simpler things still—picking up an egg sandwich from the convenience store. Karaoke. Going on a road trip in spring.

If he didn’t make it through this, it’d all be lost for good.

It was still night, but the date had changed. He’d made it to Day 8.

He’d make it count. For all of—

Something twinged in his chest.

The waters of Destiny Islands drifted into his vision, their tides lapping at his boots. “Oh, come on.”

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora latched onto something. It was the same thread as before—the one that had linked him to Riku—so he pulled it gently this time, hoping to figure out what it was. It felt like Riku, and himself, but there was something else in it, too. Just as he was trying to gauge its shape, something bounced back at him.

 _Oh my god._ The voice wasn’t Riku’s, though it sounded a little like it.

“W-What?” Sora stammered, confused. Had he pulled in someone else by mistake? Whoever it was seemed kind of mad.

_You really can just do it, can’t you?_

“Do what?” He had no idea what he was doing.

 _Stuff like this. Like, you just want it hard enough, and it happens._ The voice scoffed.

Sora’s mouth drooped open, not sure what to say. “I—“

_Whatever. What did you want? What can I do for you?_

Sora was at a loss. This person obviously knew him, but he wasn’t sure they’d met. “Wait… who are you?”

There was a pause, like the voice was offended. _I’m Yozora,_ he said, holding back an “obviously”.

Sora wanted to slap himself in the head. He’d been so distracted about Riku, he’d totally forgotten about Yozora. How rude could he be? Yozora was probably close enough to Riku that he must have caught the connection instead.

“Oh, right!” Sora said apologetically. “Sorry! And… sorry for earlier today—Riku said you could tell that I was upset, after I left that one battle. It’s kind of embarrassing now…”

Sora imagined Yozora giving a slow blink. _So… you don’t know. What else happened._

Sora didn’t. Hopefully Yozora would clear things up. “I… I think I really freaked Riku out tonight, but—“

 _Yeah. You did._ Yozora cut in. Was this why he sounded mad at him? _Sora, what did you do?_

Not wanting to make him any angrier, Sora quickly did his best to explain to Yozora what had happened—the date, talking with Riku, the maybe-kiss.

Yozora barked out a sort of laugh. _Oh. Well, that’s great._

“Are… are you making fun of me?” Sora asked, a little defensively. There was nothing wrong with maybe kissing Riku, was there?

Yozora was quiet, and Sora was about to check if he was still there when—

_He’s freaked because you possessed me, Sora._

Sora’s heart plummeted in his chest with a loud _thunk._ The link between him and Riku. _Yozora_ had been what connected them. Sora recognized his presence now. It was _him_ there on the roof, and Sora had just…

Oh no. Oh no oh no.

 _Hah. Right?_ Yozora added, as if in response.

Sora crumpled, hands shaking. He’d _what?_

_Sora?_

He’d… he’d taken someone over?

_Sora? Hey, stay with me._

How did that make him any better than Xehanort?

_Sora, y-you’re panicking._

How could he have done something like that to someone he hadn’t even _met?_

 _Sora!_ Yozora’s desperate voice finally cut through.

Sora raised his head, tears flowing freely from his face. “B-But I…”

Yozora sniffed. Was he crying too? _You didn’t mean it—I know. And you let go, so…_

“What if I hadn’t?” Sora whimpered, voice small.

 _You did,_ Yozora said angrily. _“What ifs” are a waste of time._

Sora stared down. “I-I didn’t _know,_ Yozora… If I had, I would never have—“

 _None of us knew. It’s…_ Yozora huffed. _It’s not anyone’s fault, all right?_

“Except mine! I just… I wanted to see Riku so badly that I—“

 _Yeah, yeah, look—no hard feelings, all right? Just don’t do it again._ Yozora sighed. _Or… Or I don’t know, ask? Okay?_

Sora drew in a deep, shaky breath. He had to keep himself in check now, or there was no telling what he’d end up doing to Yozora. After a while he said, “Okay.”

 _Okay,_ Yozora echoed.

He didn’t say anything more, and Sora thought he might have left. Then—

_Sora?_

“Yeah?”

_Can you let me go now?_

“Ah! Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

Sora dropped the connection as fast as he could, like how you unplugged a computer before it could get a virus. He’d gotten the information he needed—even if he wasn’t so sure he _wanted_ it—and he prayed he wouldn’t do that to Yozora ever, ever again.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

The tides pulled back, and the Shinjuku street returned to view. Yozora wobbled on his feet. At least the tail wasn’t there to throw off his balance anymore. He’d been fixed up again—he could see the slight brown tint to the hair on the edges of his vision.

So _that_ was Sora. Yozora blew out a breath. He hadn’t just been trying to make Riku feel better earlier—it really _was_ impossible to stay mad at that guy. He’d been more upset at having possessed someone than the possessee was at being possessed.

And he’d even done it again—sort of. Yozora hadn’t been trapped underwater that time, though, just sort of… on the beach. He could see Shinjuku if he squinted, but he’d still been in some kind of… thrall. What had he looked like while his brain was off on its tropical vacation? Was he just standing there, staring into space? Probably a sitting duck for an attack, too, if the Reapers were still out for blood. Where were they, anyway? Making out somewhere?

…

So. Riku had almost kissed him, huh? That would have been… something. But would Yozora still be standing here if he had? He glanced back up at the skyscraper. It _was_ Riku who’d brought him back after all—Riku who had fought for him. Sora had only left because Riku got upset.

_“What if I hadn’t?”_

Sora’s question wouldn’t stop ringing in his head. How long was he going to avoid it?

What _if_ he hadn’t come back?

He’d obviously prefer to stay as much _himself_ as possible, but at this point, he wasn’t sure how feasible it would be. The closer he got, the more he drew from them, the more he stood to lose if it all went wrong.

But… if he had to pick between being erased and becoming Sora—or Riku—well, at least he’d still be _somewhere._ The things that got erased… they dissipated into that static, and Yozora didn’t know where they went. Some sea of souls where nothing was itself anymore. It scared him more than anything.

The Reapers had been counting on them erasing each other, but what they weren’t counting on was him and Riku winning _together_. He hadn’t forgotten what Riku had promised him on the skyscraper that first night.

But if he did win this Game with Riku— _when_ he won this game with Riku—he wasn’t sure where that left him. After he got Riku and Sora out of the Game and back to their lives, what life did he have to go back to? He kept confusing pieces of his own life with pieces of other people’s lives, and not to mention, ever since he’d gotten here, he couldn’t even remember how he’d _died._ That memory was somewhere in the shards the Reapers had taken.

How the _others_ died, though? They were impossible to forget. In fact, every one of them had taken a moment to describe it, in all its morbid clarity, like it was some kind of sick contest. As if it would prove to everyone else that _they_ deserved to make it through this, that _they_ were going to be the one to reclaim the life they’d been so wrongfully taken from.

Riku hadn’t done any of that. He’d never even asked Yozora. Riku didn’t care about what he’d been before, just what he was now. And maybe… that could be enough for Yozora, too.

Speaking of Riku, Yozora’s stomach had been twisting with anxiety for the past few minutes. It was time to go back.

 

They were waiting for him when he got close to the skyscraper.

“Why now?” he yelled, once he saw Haru and Ume’s dark figures beneath the street light. “I passed your test, didn’t I?”

“You _did!”_ Haru said, like she was congratulating a child. “You passed so well that the Boss wanted to watch just a little longer. And apparently, you’re just full of surprises!”

“How was your trip to the beach…?” Ume cooed.

They _had_ been watching while he talked with Sora. “Where were you witches hiding?!”

“We’ve just been keeping an _eye_ on you.” Haru giggled like she’d made a joke.

Ume brought a finger to her left eye, a smile playing on her lips. “Why do you think we let you keep it…?”

His eye. _His_ eye. The piece he thought was still _his._ They’d…

All of the battles he’d fought and moves he’d learned. All of the things he’d hurt. All of the times he’d looked at Riku, just a little too long.

His face burned.

They’d seen _everything._

“Surprise!” Haru cheered. “Your little theater has been so much fun to watch.”

“Which is why we’re here to collect you,” Ume added.

“Boss says you’re ready.”

 

He ran, making full use of Sora’s agility, but they had him outnumbered, and they had _wings._ He only lasted a little longer than he had when they’d first met. God, what was the point of the keyblade if it didn’t work outside the Noise planes?

They pinned him down with claws they’d pulled from Noise, like they had when they’d collected his entry fee. Had they done the same to Riku, or was Yozora just that _lucky?_ He wrenched his limbs against the restraints, trying to force himself to split just enough to glitch free. But Sora was too new and bright in his chest, and he couldn’t come apart.

Yozora searched for the skyscraper’s red lights, hoping Riku might be able to see him down here, but the ambush spot they’d picked blocked the building from view.

He hadn’t said goodbye.

Haru stood over him, bright blue eye gleaming in the night. Ume, meanwhile, drew something from her pocket, and leaned in close. “It’ll be easier if you don't resist.”

She held the object up to his eyes, nearly close enough to touch his face.

He hardly had time to process what it was—the change was coming on so fast.

It was an eye. A blue, cat eye. Like theirs.

Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no
> 
> rewind to sora getting a popup on his computer and screaming for riku to come help him  
> “sora that’s not how computer viruses wo—you already unplugged it”
> 
> as for the Sunshine Burger employees, I'm imagining them watching as some kid comes in crying, eats half his food, dozes off in front of his fries for a few minutes, pops up like nothing happened, then wolfs down the rest of his meal and they're just like "typical wednesday"
> 
> Lastly, I drew some of [Yozora's "third wheel" faces](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1115014308662992896) to lighten the mood


	13. Day 4 - Grey Noise

**— >>RIKU**

Riku hadn’t wanted to leave the skyscraper, in case Yozora came back and couldn’t find him, but he still hadn’t seen him from the roof.

Was this how Yozora had felt, waiting for more Players to appear? Waiting for _someone_ in this empty city?

He shouldn’t have let him go. It was so late—or rather, early. The next day would be starting soon, and Yozora would be on his _eighth_ —the first day of a new week. The Reapers wouldn’t be pulling punches anymore, if you could call what they’d been doing so far _pulling punches._

Riku’s need to _move_ had sent him exploring the other floors of the building—ones that Yozora had never taken him to before. Like all text in this world, the signs inside the building were gibberish, but Riku could recognize the number “45” on a lot of them, with arrows to the elevator. It was probably referring to a floor number.

He took the elevator to the 45th floor, and followed the remaining signs to the floor’s main attraction. The hall opened into a large, open space with windows nearly all around—an observation deck. There was a darkened restaurant—a nice one, by the look of it—a gift shop, and windows that displayed views all around the city. Riku briefly wondered if the “date” might have gone better if it had been in here.

He wandered the empty deck. For as many windows as there were, the floor still seemed relatively secure, with a lot of places to find cover. It was a better vantage point, at least, then dangling off the roof. So why hadn’t Yozora ever brought them here?

At the windows of the eastern corner, the one that faced the dawn, Riku found his answer.

Lined along the windowsills, deliberately spaced, were eight objects.

A nice watch. A scrap of fabric, maybe from a dress. Two wedding rings. A cell phone with a shattered screen. A purse. A blackened running shoe. A ball cap with a mascot on it.

The fact that they hadn’t been cleaned up or moved meant that they weren’t from the living plane. They were from this one.

The Reaper’s Game.

 

Riku couldn’t wait any longer. He had to find him.

 

Anxiety soured to desperation as he ran through Shinjuku’s streets, scouring the city for some shred of _something_ —a glove, a trace scent, those horrible _Reapers,_ but there was nothing.

Yozora was gone.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora was still scared to talk to Riku. He’d messed up really bad, and he’d dragged Riku’s new friend into it too. Maybe Riku didn’t even want to talk to him. He spent a lot of time going back and forth, and eventually decided to wait until Riku called him into battle. He could hold off on fighting Noise for that long, and Neku’s mission could wait for a bit.

As if on cue, Sora’s phone buzzed with a notification. Then, several more. He pulled it out to see four text messages.

N: _your little friend stopped making despair noise_  
N: _and started making ANOTHER kind_  
N: _they’re freaking weird_  
N: _get rid of them_

Then the phone’s mission status lit up to tell Sora it was active. It looked like Neku wasn’t bothering to send "official" mission mails anymore, but the texts didn't make him feel any more at ease. It looked like Vanitas was still making trouble for Neku, and Sora would do what he could, but he still refused to take any part in hurting him. Unless, he guessed, Vanitas actually tried to attack him this time, but for some reason Sora didn’t think he would. Now that he wasn’t taking orders from anyone, he didn’t seem to have... much of a plan?

Sora decided to see if he could text Neku back, and pressed “Send” twice to be sure. To his surprise, it went through.

S: _what does that mean?? do you think he’s ok :((_  
S: _what does that mean?? do you think he’s ok :((_  
N: _do i look like i care sora -_-_

Sora frowned. He would have to get used to not expecting any help from Neku.

 

Sora decided to do some recon at the Scramble, before trying to talk to Vanitas. If he knew what emotions Vanitas was feeling, he might be able to do something about them.

Even though it was raining on and off today, more people seemed to be in a good mood than usual. Some of them, maybe too good of a mood? He watched as one woman leaned down to pet someone’s dog, then got so overwhelmed she started crying.

There was something else going on, too. Other people were just standing around, staring into space as people walked around them, or took their hands to guide them out of crosswalks and toward shelter. Sora watched a police officer speaking gently to someone as she took them by the hand toward a nearby station. If Vanitas was causing this, then his emotions must be all over the place.

Sora’s phone buzzed with another round of notifications.

N: _you can leave the pink ones alone i guess_  
N: _but get rid of the freaky ones_  
N: _you’ll know them when you see them_

What did _that_ mean? Sora quickly tuned himself to the Noise plane to check.

There they were— _pink_ Noise symbols with gentle curls and swoops that made them look almost like flowers, and they drifted around little balloons in a parade. Sora’s face brightened. It had to mean that Vanitas was happy, now that he’d gotten rid of the despair inside him.

Sora’s gaze followed one of the symbols as it floated down near the ground, and bounced against something grey. It had ricocheted off another Noise symbol—a strangely heavy one that sat immobile on the street like a rock. The pink one seemed to shudder, and then it sank to the ground, its color draining until it was as dull and heavy as the other.

Sora’s eyes widened, and he quickly skimmed the street, looking for more of the strange symbols. They’d blended in with the street before—he hadn’t been looking for them on the ground—but he could see now that there were tons of them, sprinkled across Shibuya like tombstones. What emotion was _that?_

Sora switched out of the Noise plane. He had to find Vanitas right away.

He quickly brought his fingers to the skull pin, expecting Vanitas to grab him again, but there was nothing but the incomprehensible cacophony of Shibuya’s thoughts, building into a tidal wave of turbulent emotion. It was _bad_ today. Sora pulled his fingers away, relief hitting him immediately as the sound dropped out.

No Vanitas. If he could just stay in there long enough to call his name…

He couldn’t wait. Sora gritted his teeth, gathered his focus, and touched the pin again.

“Vanitas!?” he called, unsure if his voice had even made a sound over the roaring of emotion.

The instant dragged on as he held himself there, battered by thought. His fingers began to tremble on the pin.

Something grabbed Sora’s ankle—a _hand,_ coming from nowhere—startling him so badly he screamed.

Sora braced himself for the horror movie monster to drag him away, never to be seen again, but instead felt himself being sluggishly shifted into another plane. The scene changed, sound snuffed out like a flame. Sora looked down.

Vanitas was on the ground, hand locked on his ankle like a discarded bag waiting to be tripped over. Sora let out the breath he’d been holding. Not a monster—only Vanitas.

His wings had shrunk, and there was a bleak expression on his face, like he was sick. All of the mania and rage was gone—dried up like the earth of the Keyblade Graveyard. In short, Vanitas looked awful.

Sora struggled to keep his balance as he knelt down to his doppelganger’s level.

“Vanitas, what… what _happened?”_

It took him a while to respond, as if all of his energy was being focused on his grip on Sora’s ankle.

“It all… left.” he croaked out, voice hoarse.

“You got all the bad stuff out, right?” That’s what Neku had said—that the Despair Noise had stopped appearing. Sora hadn’t seen any, either. So why was he… like this? Sora moved to brush some black hair from Vanitas’ ragged face, but he was weakly rebuffed by Vanitas’ free hand. His other didn’t seem to have any intention of relinquishing its death grip.

“Everything left.” His intonation was hollow, devoid of emotion. Sora wondered if he preferred the cackling. This Vanitas was scary in a different way.

“You mean… your emotions? _All_ your emotions?”

Vanitas nodded slightly, and put forth a valiant effort to glare at Sora’s shoes.

Whatever he was doing now must have been what made those creepy-looking grey Noise, but the pink ones had to be made from something like happiness, relief. He even lost his _good_ emotions? Sora’s heart twisted. Once his floodgates of emotion had opened, Vanitas must not have known how to stop everything from coming out.

He brought a hand to the one on his ankle. Vanitas flinched, but still wouldn’t let go, as if Sora was some sort of security blanket. “Hey, if it’s okay, you can have some of mine.” Sora’s emotions were… a lot of places right now, on account of the debacle with Yozora and Riku, but they had to be better than nothing.

Vanitas bared his teeth weakly, as if he was trying to summon the will to be disgusted. “You’re in _love_ with that white-haired guy. _Riku.”_

Sora wanted to roll his eyes. “Yeah, Vanitas. I am.” It was old news.

“Love is _weak,”_ Vanitas growled, clearly not picking up on the irony of lying prone on the ground, while Sora crouched above him, perfectly fine.

Sora frowned. “If I’m so weak, then why don’t you let go of me?”

Vanitas said nothing, and continued glowering at Sora’s hand on his, neither of which had budged.

Sora let out a soft huff, and settled into a more comfortable seat. This could be a while.

 

As they waited together, Sora could feel periodic tugs from Vanitas’ fractured heart, like they were having a sleepover and he was hogging all the blankets. Sora didn’t resist. If he’d learned anything this year, it was that he had enough heart to go around.

Eventually, the color, if you could call it that, began to return to Vanitas’ face, and Sora tensed a little, ready to get away if he started getting scary again. He could probably pry Vanitas’ grip off if he tried the fingers one by one.

But to his surprise, Vanitas just closed his eyes and curled onto his side toward Sora like a cat, brow furrowed. What was going _on_ with him?

Vanitas was still for so long that Sora thought he'd fallen asleep, but then his face wrenched up, tears budding at his eyes. Was he in pain again?

Sora kept his voice low, coaxing a cat that he knew still had claws. "Vanitas…? Are you okay?"

"Go away." His teeth were clenched, and Sora thought he might be trying to fight off the tears.

“Huh?”

"I don't _need_ you. Don't you remember? I don't need you or Ventus or _anyone_ anymore."

Sora had been given plenty of reasons to believe he _did_ —the crying, for one. The fact that he still hadn’t moved away from Sora’s touch. “…I don’t think you mean that, Vanitas.”

“Get _lost."_ Vanitas finally rolled over the other way, hand dragging off of Sora's ankle with a hesitation that wasn't lost on him. Vanitas’ wings folded out next to Sora, a little bigger than they'd been just a little while ago.

As he examined the wings on his shoulders, Sora saw them begin to tremble. He heard Vanitas bite back a sob. Sora raised his hand to take Vanitas’ again, then thought better of it. Now that his emotions were coming back, he’d have to tread lightly. But he was _going_ to help Vanitas, mission or no.

"Do you... want to talk about it?" Sora asked cautiously. "I'm a good listener."

"Did you miss the part where I told you to _get lost?"_ Vanitas snapped. He was trying to clamp down the crying with anger now.

Sora's mouth set. "I'm not going to leave you here in the dark all by yourself."

 

 **— >>VANITAS**  
Releasing so much Noise had left his emotions dulled, no longer able to _cut._ He kept anticipating the barrage of feelings that always slinked back to burrow into his chest again, but instead, he just felt empty in a way he never had before.

The contents of his heart had spilled out from all its cracks, and there was nothing left inside anymore. He was a hollow volcano, drained of its magma and heat.

He was useless. _Feeling_ was everything, and if he couldn't feel, he was nothing but... nothing.

Nobodies lost their feelings. Was this what it felt _like?_ This... abyss inside his ribs? Vanitas laid there numbly and wondered how they ever got anything done.

Then, there was a ripple.

 _“Vanitas!?"_ He heard the voice and felt the pressure of the planes shift under Sora's weight, his brightness. Sora. He had to get to _Sora._ He had to _take_ what _Sora had._

Weakly, he drove his hand through the currents of the planes, and they parted around his hand like an opening in a curtain. And from there on the ground, he latched onto Sora's ankle like the shadow he was. He barely registered Sora’s scream as he gathered what was left of himself and _pulled._

 

He couldn’t let go of Sora until he had what he needed. He wouldn’t let Sora take another step until he’d _taken_ what he _needed._ He tried to form threats in his head, but there was no heat in them, nothing to give them life, and he ended up saying pointless, useless things instead.

But Sora had given him what he wanted anyway. What an _idiot._

When Sora put his hand to his, the warmth was instantaneous. He wanted to recoil from it, but he gritted his teeth and bore it because he _needed_ it. It drifted from his hand, through his arm, and slowly settled into his core. Sora’s emotions echoed gently in his hollow chest. They were more… complicated than Vanitas had anticipated, coming from such an empty head, but it was the _pity_ for him that really made him want to be sick.

He kept holding on. Just a little longer.

Sora’s touch was enough to keep the cracks from leaking. It was enough to keep Vanitas’ emotions inside as they began to pool. He just had to stay until they had filled him again. He could bear Sora’s stupid voice and the all of the light seeping through him until then. Sora had so much _light._

Sora, Sora, Sora. Why was it so easy to be Sora? To be Ventus? Why was Vanitas the one who _hurt?_

Suddenly, something peaked, and he was hit with a sorrow that pressed traitorous tears into his eyes, in front of _Sora,_ and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t even bring himself to feel _ashamed._

He managed to push out the threats he’d come up with earlier, but it was like Sora couldn’t even _hear_ them. Idiot.

Then, out of nowhere, came the words he’d longed for, for as long as he could remember.

"I'm not going to leave you here in the dark all by yourself."

Vanitas froze as something deep wrenched in his chest. He curled himself tighter, squeezed his eyes shut, and wailed.

 

**— >>SORA**

Vanitas’ screams—screams in _his_ voice, desperate and pained—sent Sora into a nothing short of a panic. “Vanitas! Vanitas, what happened?”

He grabbed onto Vanitas’ shoulders as the mournful wailing continued, and tried to get him up from the ground. “Please, Vanitas! Please calm down!”

Vanitas brought his hands to his head, clutching uselessly at the sides of his face. Did he want his helmet? Did he need his helmet?

Sora’s brain wasn’t coming up with anything useful, anything that would help, anything that would make the crying _stop._ There was only one thing he could think to do. Sora pulled Vanitas up by his wrists, and drew his stiff form into the tightest hug he could manage.

Vanitas bent immediately, like a sail in a storm, burying his face in Sora’s chest as desperate arms wrapped to clutch at his sides. He shook violently as if he was freezing, and Sora hugged him steady, sharing all the warmth he could muster from his heart. After a while, the wails sputtered into whimpers, and Sora relaxed his arms, holding Vanitas in a soft embrace as he rocked him gently back and forth, like a boat on calmer waters.

 

Sora held him as long as it took, and eventually, Vanitas stilled.

He was about to ask him if he was feeling better when Vanitas suddenly wrenched back, glaring bitterly at Sora with his yellow eyes, now red from crying. Then, without warning, he shoved him hard, sending Sora tumbling out of the Noise planes all over again.

Sora’s butt landed unceremoniously on the wet Shibuya street, and he came dangerously close to letting a cuss word cross his lips. “What! The _heck!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _let sora say heck_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> vanitas voice: hah i really showed him. fool
> 
>  
> 
> [Art from this chapter](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1119106309402451969)  
> [Catch up on fic art in this thread!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)


	14. Day 4 - I Live for Food

**— >>RIKU**

Riku had continued to run until his lungs burned and his throat stung from calling Yozora’s name. Dawn would break soon, and he couldn’t let himself break down.

But for all his searching, the only thing he’d found was what something like a small, invisible rift in the planes, a little ways from the skyscraper. All it was was a part of the air that resonated differently than the space around it, and he’d found it entirely by mistake after walking right through it. The sensation had reminded him of the shift into battle, but he hadn’t gone anywhere.

It was his first and only clue, but he had no idea what to _do_ with it. It was an infuriating anomaly that his low-burning candle of a mind wasn’t equipped to handle. Riku could feel himself fizzling out, and he knew he had to get himself thinking straight again, or he’d be useless to Yozora.

He’d almost let him down on the roof. He _had_ let him down by not going with him when he left the safety of their skyscraper. He had to make things right, because Yozora was still out there somewhere. Riku wouldn’t allow himself to believe anything else.

As terrible as the night had been, as much guilt as was tearing through the pit of his stomach, Riku was ready to talk to his partner again. He was _past_ ready. He needed that voice, those reassuring words. He needed the face from up on the roof, that he could hold in his head for brief moments before it shifted out of focus again.

But the Noise were gone, too. The Reapers couldn’t have been summoning all of them, could they? Had they been toying with them this whole time, dropping in Noise whenever they felt like keeping things interesting?

Without Noise or Reapers, there was no way to contact his partner until _he_ went into a battle in Shibuya. Riku still didn’t have a timer on his palm, which he assumed meant they were still supposed to be getting rid of the Despair Noise. So why hadn’t his partner been fighting any? His partner could be upset too, he thought, but they had more important things to worry about right now than their disastrous “date”.

 

Riku returned to the break room to gather his thoughts, and took a tea from the still-open vending machine. He sat there, sipping it as he stared at Yozora’s coffee can.

Warm sunlight came in through the windows, inching toward Riku’s shoes as Shinjuku drifted into morning. He thought of the rising sun touching the eight objects in the windows of the observation deck.

There wouldn’t be a ninth.

Riku took Yozora’s half-full coffee, and carried it to the roof. He placed it against a maintenance cabinet, visible from their usual spot, but guarded from the wind.

Yozora could finish it once he was back.

 

Riku started walking again. Keeping his feet busy kept his mind from running its more terrible scenarios. So he walked, but he didn’t search, didn’t call Yozora’s name any more, because he’d come to an understanding with himself.

Yozora wasn’t in Shinjuku anymore—of that much he was certain. They’d been together long enough that Riku's heart knew the volatile cocktail of light and darkness that made up Yozora’s scent. It changed, like different candles all burning at once, but that made it so strange, so unique that Riku would know it anywhere. And it wasn’t here.

But that didn’t mean that Yozora wasn’t in _another_ Shinjuku—another plane of reality, like where his partner found Noise to fight. He’d described finding the Noise plane like putting a lens over his sight—opening your eyes, and then opening them again. But that was just _seeing_ the Noise—Riku needed to take it a step further. He had to _make_ it there if he wanted to perform a proper search.

When he was phased in to battle, there was a brief space of time when he wasn’t _anywhere_ —when he was _between,_ in some kind of void space, as he shifted. The other planes must be like channels of the city, layered on top of each other, with that void acting as a buffer. Crossing through was the first step to making it somewhere else.

Riku stopped before the plane rift. He’d been heading towards it without thinking.

Recalling his relationship with the darkness wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes, but Riku had remembered something on his walk. Sometimes Corridors of Darkness left echoes behind them—ripples in reality. If the ripple had been big enough, sometimes, you could even find where they went.

If the plane rift was any similar, then there was some way inside, and some way _out._

Riku didn't have his partner’s ingenuity, his moments of bright clarity. He wasn’t malleable like Yozora.

What Riku did possess, was strength.

He pressed his hands toward the empty air where the anomaly began, and closed his eyes. Now that he had an actual goal, renewed determination, he could feel his fingers begin to brush the pathway that had been shorn between the planes, through the void. He dipped his hands in further, trying to catch them on a seam. At last he found purchase on the edge of a rip. Riku latched his fingers into it, hardened his arms, and tore.

Riku’s muscles protested at first, screaming as if he were dragging something massive through water, but once the rift began to give, it bent to his will and opened like a curtain. It sprang around him instantly, folding him into its reality. As he shifted, a high whine ground through his head, making his teeth feel like they were being turned inside out.

 

All sound dropped out for an instant, and then the ground rose to meet Riku's feet. Before he had time to process where he’d ended up, something huge and dark came at him, and he flinched, bracing for impact that didn’t come. He spun, looking for what had tried to hit him.

Someone had run by him with a black umbrella bent toward the rain. Someone had run _through_ him.

Riku’s breath hitched as he took in the new world around him. He could hardly believe it was the same Shinjuku street he’d just shifted from, because this street had _people._ He hadn’t seen _people_ in days. There weren’t many people, admittedly—rain was falling gently, and anyone outside was heading briskly toward their destination, or waiting under awnings or umbrellas. Weather was another thing their Shinjuku plane had lacked.

Someone else neared him on the street, and barreled toward him like they couldn’t see him. Reflexively, Riku sidestepped, expecting to bump their shoulder, but it passed right through him.

Riku held his hands out to catch the rain, but they weren’t wet. The drops fell without hitting him. So he didn’t exist here—not quite—but he’d actually made it out of the desolate reflection of Shinjuku that he and Yozora had been trapped in. This plane was more like what his partner had described Shibuya being like—people who passed through you, and the unshakeable feeling that you were holding your finger on the pulse of the world.

Riku started off into the city. The rain might make it difficult, but if he could catch some shred of Yozora’s scent, he knew he could find him.

This Shinjuku was like a different city altogether. The places that he and Yozora had wandered alone were bustling with movement and life. Riku could smell _food,_ and even though his body still didn’t feel hungry, he longed to eat something, just to soften the imprint of the nowhere he’d been trapped for the past few days. Every time he’d gotten back from the Realm of Darkness—which by the way, shouldn’t even exist as an expression in his vocabulary—he’d always been ravenously hungry, and food had been something that helped him feel like… well, like a _person_ again.

The closest food smell was coming from a nearby curry stand—a popular one, by the look of it. Two women were waiting at the back of the sizable line, tucked under the same umbrella. The one with short-cropped hair whispered something funny to the long-haired one holding their umbrella. She muffled a giggle with her palm, playfully shoving the umbrella into the other woman’s hand.

As the shorter one took it, chuckling, her eyes drifted past Riku, then shot back.

Her gaze locked on him as if he were a black hole that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the street, disbelief and rage sparking across her face like an electric current. As her girlfriend turned to find what she was looking at, her face dropped into an expression impossible to read. Riku's eyes fell on the dark braid that had been hidden by her shoulder, and the pieces slid into place.

More than a little common sense evaporated from Riku’s mind, and he lunged at the Reapers.

There in her purple rain jacket—the Reaper was wearing a _purple rain jacket_ —Ume's pretty face wrenched itself into a snarl as she spun her hands in front of her, summoning a small Noise symbol like a shield. Riku had no time to react or shift his blow. As soon as his fist made contact with the symbol, he was phased into the Noise plane.

His momentum left him tumbling onto the street, narrowly avoiding a small swarm of frog Noise. It must have been all she could muster, with her thoughts distracted by an impending _curry lunch._ Riku jumped up, seething as he summoned the keyblade.

“Riku!" He thought he’d be ready for that voice. But he wasn’t. He wasn't ready.

“I have to go!” Riku quickly said. “I have to catch them!”

"Who? What happened?!"

He gave no further explanation, and drove his keyblade through the little Noise in one swift arc.

His feet landed back in Shinjuku—the one with people, luckily—and he spun, looking for the Reapers, but all he could see were the other curry patrons turned confusedly to the spot where Haru and Ume had been, looking for the two women who had suddenly vanished. Their scents had been masked by the curry, but Riku picked them out now, lingering where they had been standing. The Reapers had plane shifted, easily, in _seconds_ —having answered for nothing.

Riku tried to get his breathing back under control, but everything compounded to cascade and crash upon him, and he let out a cry that had been simmering in his chest since he’d lost Yozora. He raised his head, pushing it out until his lungs were spent.

Two or three people’s attention drifted his way, but, seeing nothing, they returned to their safe, uncomplicated lives.

 

Riku was pulled into battle not long after that. Or maybe it was long after that. Before him sat a… slug-looking Noise, planted in the middle of the battlefield like an immovable rock. It wasn’t doing anything, not even readying an attack.

In other words, they had time.

“…Can you talk now, Riku?” came his partner’s cautious voice.

Riku hadn’t been able to find the Reapers again, but he still hadn’t finished searching the plane for Yozora, and didn’t want to make the jump back until he could be certain.

So yes, he had time to talk, but he didn’t know if he could. His throat was threatening to seize up, and he feared that if he tried to say something, the tears would surface.

“You’re here, right?” his partner asked patiently.

Riku clenched his fists, eyes squeezing shut.

“Are you… Are you mad at me?”

Riku choked, and shook his head, hoping his partner could pick up on the gesture, somehow.

“What happened?” His partner’s voice was so gentle that he thought he might fall to pieces beneath it, sink into its soft sands.

“They took Yozora,” Riku whispered, knowing that if he spoke any louder, his voice would break. “And I found them, but they got away.”

“No… No…” The soft voice began to shake, tremors building beneath it. Not at all reassuring. “I… Riku, I just talked to him a few hours ago! He was… he was fine then!”

Riku looked up. His partner had talked to Yozora? “How?” The question came out harsher than he’d meant it to, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Did you take him over again?”

He could hear his partner’s lip tremble. “No, I—Riku, I didn’t know, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to.” He drew in a quaking breath. “I’m so sorry.”

Riku turned his glare to the ground as the anger that had risen in him began to drain, more with every tearful word his partner spoke. Because he wasn’t mad at his partner—he couldn’t be. He was just _mad,_ at the Reapers, at the Game, and most of all himself.

His partner went on, anxious to explain himself. “I… I found him, again, and he explained to me what happened. Then I… I told him how sorry I was. How if I’d known, I never would have done that to him.”

“And… he was okay?” Riku asked quietly.

“Y-Yeah. He sounded fine.”

He’d been all right. And his partner had talked to him, which would have left him stable.

“But the Reapers got him?” His partner’s voice held a guilt that mirrored his own.

Riku’s throat stung as he nodded. “Yeah.”

Something soft and steadying rippled through their connection, almost as if his partner was laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Riku… It’s going to be okay,” his partner said. The words would have been useless on anyone else’s lips, but on his partner’s, Riku felt like he could actually believe them. “We’ll get Yozora back, and we’ll _win_ these Games. The Reapers won’t be able to do anything about it—not while we’re partners!”

His partner could tell mountains they could move, and they'd suddenly discover they could. Riku laughed in spite of himself.

“That’s the spirit!” his partner cheered. “Let’s finish this fight. Once we’re back, I’ll try talking to Yozora again. Maybe he can give us a message!”

Riku’s heart lifted in his chest. His partner always knew just what to do.

 

**— >>SORA**

Vanitas’ Noise—what should they call these ones? Stone Noise? Grey Noise?—didn’t put up anything resembling a fight, so it was less like a fight and more like the two of them kicking and hitting a rock until it crumbled.

They dropped out of battle, and Sora immediately concentrated on Yozora’s thread from before. Yozora was their friend, and they were _getting_ him back, no matter what it took.

Once Sora linked with it, though, he found that the thread felt strangely empty, hollow of Yozora’s presence. Where was he? “Yozora!” Sora called, trying to fill the entire space with his name.

After a beat, something bounced back.

_Sorry, Yozora can’t come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?_

The playful words set Sora on edge. It was Yozora’s voice, but it sounded nothing like him. This voice was Yozora’s sent through a taffy puller that twisted his words sweetly, wrongly.

“Where’s Yozora?!”

_Oh, he’s right here, don’t you worry! I’m just borrowing him for a while—you understand how that is… Don’t you, Sora?_

The voice lingered on the question in a way that made Sora’s heart buckle, and he had to fight to keep his nerve. “Let him go!”

 _And ruin the surprise? As if!_ For the second time in almost as many days, Sora thought of Xigbar.

Sora was pushing back tears now. Why did anger always put him so close to crying? “He’s his own person! He doesn’t deserve this!”

_And just what do you know about him, Sora? Not a whole lot, I think. Who’s to say you can even trust him?_

“Riku trusts him, and that’s enough for me!” He was crying now, feeling too much like he’d already lost.

_You think Riku could say the same about you? He’s so scatterbrained these days…_

Sora ignored that. “Please. _Please_ let Yozora go.”

 _Hmm…_ the voice contemplated, like it was actually considering it.

 _How about this,_ the voice said, like it was prepping to broker a deal. _Why don’t you try and make me?_

The connection cut out without Sora’s dropping it, and when he tried to find it again, he couldn’t. There was nothing but static, his link to Yozora dangling like a severed cord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t realize I hadn’t said this yet but they’re definitely using the word “aibou” when they talk about being partners
> 
> and also it’s really getting to the point where I have to make sure I’m not slipping up and using Sora’s name in Riku’s sections asgkj
> 
> Yozora’s like, definitely voiced by Ray Chase right??
> 
> [Catch up on fic art here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)


	15. Day 4 - Need Them Back

**— >>RIKU**

Riku had to busy himself with something while he waited for his partner to pull him back, so he began a loop around _this_ Shinjuku. He hadn’t picked up on any other scents, but there was a sort of… energy emanating a little northeast of the red-light building. He started off towards it.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora was scared—really scared. Someone had taken Yozora’s body, heart, and mind, and they didn’t even care what they were doing to him. That put them on the same level as Xehanort, and it had taken Sora, and all of his friends, _years_ to undo damage like that.

How was he supposed to fix this? To find someone in another city, another Game, while he was trapped in this one, chipping away at a mission that was basically just smashing a bunch of _rocks?_

He needed help. He needed the _keyblade_. Neku said “they” had taken it, but did that “they” include Neku?

Did Neku have his keyblade?

Sora pulled out his phone and started a text.

S: _neku i really need my keyblade back_

Backspace backspace backspace.

S: _neku something really bad is going on in shinjuku_

Nothing he typed felt urgent enough, convincing enough, especially when he could see the string of Neku’s last texts above his message box.

S: _what does that mean?? do you think he’s ok :((_  
S: _what does that mean?? do you think he’s ok :((_  
N: _do i look like i care sora -_-_  
N: _you can leave the pink ones alone i guess_  
N: _but get rid of the freaky ones_  
N: _you’ll know them when you see them_

Sora flipped the phone shut. He knew he was stalling.

He didn’t want to be the one to tell Riku about Yozora.

But he was the only one who could, the only one who could _do_ something. Even if he had no idea what.

Sora blew out a breath, and tuned to the Noise plane to find a rock to punch.

He blinked. Then he turned around. All of the grey ones he’d seen before, the ones scattered across the Scramble, were gone.

“They were _weak,”_ came the answer to a question he hadn't asked yet.

Vanitas manifested before him, holding a Grey Noise with both hands. His smile cut like a knife as he wrung his hands together, ripping the symbol into static.

Vanitas flicked both his hands out, scattering remnant particles, grin wide as ever. It looked like he was feeling better. Feeling _again._

Sora couldn’t help it—he beamed. The mission he’d been dreading was already done, or close to. He ran forward and hugged Vanitas before either of them had time to think better of it. “Vanitas! Thank you _so much!”_

Vanitas actually froze for a moment before shoving him away—but not out of the Noise planes again. Progress!

“Get _away_ from me,” he spat.

Sora took a courteous step back as Vanitas folded his arms.

“What are you _thanking_ me for?” After what seemed like a moment of thought, like he was trying to come up with something to say, his frown turned to a smile that spread across his face like he was unzipping a zipper. “Were you waiting for _your turn?”_

But Sora was too happy to find Vanitas threatening. He shook his head. “The mission! I thought I was gonna have to get rid of all those Noise before Neku would let me talk to him again!”

“What. Are you _talking_ about.” Vanitas said, grin turning easily into gritted teeth.

Sora stopped, a frown forming. “Wait—but Riku is still waiting…”

“Hey!” Vanitas barked. “Tell me what you’re talking about!”

Breaking the news wouldn’t be any less difficult, but Vanitas had helped set his mind at ease about what came next, with Neku. This would have to put him in a good mood. Sora could talk to Riku now, but he’d have to tune to the regular Noise plane where the regular black-and-red Noise were, not this Vanitas-Noise-plane.

“Don’t ignore me!” came a snarl.

Sora tuned back to the regular Scramble right as Vanitas grabbed his shoulder, and in a rippling wave, they both shifted back together.

Immediately, Vanitas hissed at the Shibuya light and closed his eyes, even though it was still fairly overcast. What was he, a vampire?

And true to vampiric form, Vanitas snatched at the planes around him like they were a curtain, and pulled himself back into their folds, vanishing completely.

Sora tentatively pawed at the place he’d just been, trying to catch the opening he’d just made, but there was nothing but a lingering feeling of distortion.

“What. Was that?” Neku’s feet dropped from above him as he touched down on the ground, wings out.

Sora spun. _“Oh hi Neku!”_ His cheerful greeting came out more than a little forced.

“Sora.” Neku was at eye level now, and he wasn’t breaking eye contact, as much as Sora would have appreciated it.

“That… was… Vanitas, saying _hi…”_

“Sora.” Neku kept saying his name like he was a problem child. “I _told you_ to _call me.”_

Sora head heard it before, but this time he had a plan. He pulled out his phone and flipped it open, showing Neku the screen that, as expected, now read _COMPLETE._

“The mission is _done,_ Neku. And _Vanitas_ completed it—all of it!” He flipped the phone closed with a satisfying snap. These phones were good at punctuation.

Neku whipped out his own phone to check, anger tilting into disbelief. _“He_ got rid of all of them?”

“See?” Sora pressed. “He’s got good in him! He just had to get the bad out!”

Neku scrolled through his phone, head shaking slightly. “There were more than a _hundred…”_

Sora didn’t have a lot of time to argue semantics with Neku. Riku was probably worrying by now, and he wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance like this. “Hey, Neku? Before you give another mission, I… I need to talk to you.”

“If you want me to give him a pass, you’ve got another thing coming,” he snapped.

“No—well, yes, but, we can talk about that later!”

Neku folded his arms, revving up another variation of “no way”.

Sora clenched his hands to stop himself from fidgeting, and looked Neku right in the face. “Neku. I need the keyblade back. I need to get to Riku.”

Neku’s expression faltered. It probably wasn’t the request he’d been expecting. His voice went quiet, strained. “Sora, I… You know I can’t do that. It was your entry fee.”

“So how do I get it back?” Sora protested. “How do I win the Game?”

Judging by Neku’s face, it was the last question Neku had wanted him to ask, and he finally broke Sora’s gaze, no longer able to look at him.

“Neku,” Sora said seriously. “What do I have to do?” He would do anything. _Anything._

Neku dropped his hands into his pockets, and tucked his face into his collar. “You have to fight me, Sora.”

The words ricocheted through Sora’s head, not quite finding purchase.

“And you have to _beat_ me.”

Neku’s wings were still spread behind him, larger than Vanitas’ had ever been. A symbol of the power that had pinned Sora to the ground in the space of a breath.

Neku waited for Sora’s answer, stiff as a board. It was good to know neither of them were excited by the thought.

“Do I… Do I have to do it right now?” Sora managed to whisper, fear trilling in his chest. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if he could _ever_ be ready.

Neku shook his head, face still buried. “You have all week to beat a Game Master. Those are the rules.”

Sora nodded slowly. “…Okay. Okay.”

Silence settled between them, like the volume of the world being turned down.

When Sora couldn’t bear it any longer, “…Neku?”

“Yeah?”

“When… When I need to get out of here—when I _really_ need the keyblade—I’ll call you. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

Sora nodded weakly, and Neku turned away from him. There was nothing more they could bring themselves to say, not while the weight of the Game hung heavy all around them, suspended above the rain-soaked streets.

“See you, Sora.”

He took off, soaring into the air, and in the overcast light, Sora imagined it was his dark wings eclipsing the sun.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku stopped before a building. Something about it—its own scent, maybe, had drawn him here like a beacon. The concrete that ran up its sides was covered in rectangular pock marks that reminded him of some sort of barcode, or maybe even static. The windows that spread across its other sides seemed to ripple without moving, frozen as waves of distorted data.

Riku’s eyes fell on the sign out front. It was gibberish—that much hadn’t changed—but it looked like a logo, black lettering with two red dashes in the middle.

The fractured building sat on a street like any other, and the city continued beyond it in all directions, but somehow, it felt like every final battlefield he’d ever walked.

It felt like the end of the world.

Whoever did this, _all this,_ was in that building.

Riku walked towards the entrance slowly, wary of an ambush that didn’t come. He made it all the way to the doors, but they wouldn’t open.

He could see people inside, going about their business. An office building, maybe?

Riku heard footsteps behind him, and spun. It was an ordinary person—a man in a casual suit, approaching the door. He pulled it open easily, and stepped inside. Riku quickly slipped behind the man, trying to follow him through, but he recoiled as his shoulder came into contact with something hard.

Riku looked for what he’d hit, but the door was only just now closing behind the man.

There was an invisible barrier there, blocking the entrance.

You didn’t put walls around things you didn’t want to hide.

 

Riku didn’t spend too much of his energy trying to get in—not now, not before he’d heard from his partner about Yozora—but he did make a loop around the building, checking the constitution of the barrier. It encapsulated the entire building, and made the sides too slippery to scale. They’d been thorough, which made it all the more frustrating, all the more suspicious.

Riku gave the building one last kick of his boot, and turned to go, hoping his partner had made some headway in the meantime.

 

Riku had nearly made it back to the two-pronged skyscraper when he was finally called in to battle. It was a swarm of frogs—his second today—which brought his thoughts grinding back to Haru and Ume. Once Yozora was back safe, they were _next._

Ice spread across the field to freeze the frogs solid. His partner’s magic had bought them time to talk.

“…Partner?” he called, uneasy that he hadn’t said anything yet. He was always so quick to say Riku’s name.

“I…” his partner began as Riku’s spirits sank. He knew where the news was headed, just from that single syllable. “When I tried to talk to Yozora…” His partner’s voice dropped low—bewildered, sad. “Someone else answered.”

Riku waited for him to go on, images fitting into place in his mind as others fell apart.

“It was Yozora’s voice, but… Riku, someone _took him over.”_ His partner began to cry, a magnified version of the tears pooling in Riku’s own eyes. “And they don’t… They don’t care what they’re doing to him.”

He wasn’t erased—Riku could put that brand of nightmare to rest. But… they’d barely gotten him back, last time. And that had been when his partner hadn’t even meant to do it. Someone who didn’t care, who _wanted_ control… there was no telling what it would take.

A choked sob brought him out of his thoughts. “Riku, I don’t know what to do, I just…”

Riku stared at the ground as he watched his own tears distort its shapes.

“I need _you,_ Riku. I need your help. I need you _back.”_

His vision blurred completely as hot tears dropped onto his cheeks. The voice was breaking his heart, and he couldn’t bear it.

“I-I know that’s stupid, and it’s not fair—it’s not something you can do anything about right now, and I know you’re _trying,_ but…” His partner sniffled as his voice went small. “But I want you here, with me.”

Riku imagined the face he’d seen on the roof, with the sea-blue eyes and the soft brown hair, skin warmed and freckled by an unseen sun, and a smile that knew anything was possible. Tears didn’t belong on that face.

“I _am_ with you, partner,” The words rose from Riku’s lips like a summer wind over the sea, warm and full. “We’re always together, even when we’re apart, and even when everything wants to keep us that way.” The words that spilled from him felt undeniably true, and they carried him on. “Our hearts have been connected, and that’s a bond nothing can break. That’s what it means to be partners.” At that, he felt his own spirits lift up, freed from the despair that had tempted them.

“Riku…” his partner said, so tenderly Riku thought his heart might fly away, lost to the sky. If his partner hadn’t just said his name out loud, Riku feared he might forget it.

“W-What?” was the only thing his now-functionless brain could think to say.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora’s tears faded, soaked into the vast earth.

His Riku was in there. The Game hadn’t taken Riku from him, and it hadn’t taken Yozora, either—not forever. They could fix this.

“Thank you, Riku,” Sora said, letting a little chuckle escape. “Sorry for forgetting!”

Riku was smiling, if a little shell shocked. “Y-Yeah, no problem.”

It was time for them to stop moping, and get back to what really mattered here. “Riku, in Shinjuku—do you know where they might have taken Yozora?”

“There’s a building here,” he replied immediately, snapping back to attention. “It’s the only place he could be. It’s blocked by a barrier on this plane, but I haven’t checked the others yet.”

Planes… Vanitas was good at going through the planes.

“I think… my Reaper friend might know what to do!”

Sora could almost hear Riku roll his eyes. “The one filled with Despair Noise, or the one who _trapped you there?”_

“The first one—and he’s doing better now!” Sora clarified. “I’ll find him and ask him, okay?”

Riku sighed his “this is a bad plan but I trust you so I won’t argue any more” sigh. “Okay, partner.”

Sora nodded, and turned back to the frozen Noise. He was honestly surprised they hadn’t melted yet. “We’re gonna find him! I’ll talk to you soon, Riku!”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku and his partner delivered the finishing blow to the frozen frog Noise, and phased back into their cities. Riku made it the rest of the way to the skyscraper, but as he started off onto the platform that led to its doors, Haru and Ume drew themselves from the shade of the pillars that surrounded the building.

With their hoods down, Riku could clearly see the vicious anger on their faces. _Good._ The feeling was mutual.

“And the last little white mouse comes running back to its hole,” Haru said.

“Too bad the parasite couldn’t join you, but… you’ll see each other soon enough.”

Had they even bothered to learn a single Player’s _name?_

“His name is _Yozora,”_ Riku fumed.

“Present tense, huh?” Haru asked. “Are you so sure about that?”

Ume brushed her fingers up Haru’s arm. “I’m getting tired,” she crooned. “Let’s show the little mouse what happens when he interrupts a Reaper’s _day off.”_

 

To Riku’s surprise, they forewent their usual stage production of summoning Noise, and lunged, wings spread like birds of prey diving for an easy meal. They dug their fingers into his shoulders and dragged him into the battle plane themselves.

As Riku felt the shift, the only thing he could think to do was grin.

They were on the Players’ turf now.

They threw him onto the concrete, but he wasted no time summoning the keyblade. Ume stood alone before him as she readied an attack, wings somehow blacker in the Noise plane. That meant…

“I-I didn’t mean _this_ soon, Riku!” his partner joked, though his voice was a bit strained. “Ack…! Yeesh, where did you find these Reapers?”

“Talk later!” Riku said, blocking a barrage of bright violet energy shots that Ume had lobbed at him.

“You a fan of purple?” Riku called to her.

Ume’s only response was a shriek coupled with another, stronger blast.

 

**— >>SORA**

The Reaper lady was throwing things at him—signs, benches, insults.

“So _you’re_ the one the Boss won’t shut up about! You’re nothing _special!_ You’re weaker than Ume’s _grandpa!”_

What the heck was she so mad about?

Sora did another dodge roll to avoid a maintenance cart she’d picked up and thrown—with her _mind_ —and blasted a Firaga toward her.

She screamed in rage as it found its mark, but the fire only seemed to heat her up more.

“That curry stand is only open _twice a week!”_

Now Sora _really_ had no idea what she was talking about. He just kept blasting her with magic—ice and electricity now—hoping she’d tire herself out.

 

**— >>HARU & UME**

A sharp noise interrupted their thoughts, cutting their attacks short. The Boss appeared to eclipse half their vision, and they heard his voice as clearly as if it were being piped into their very skulls. He’d never interrupted them in front of Players before, as fond as he was of staying their hands, never letting them have _anything._

“Ladies, ladies! All this fuss over a little curry?” He spread his hands in an over-exaggerated shrug, and shook his head like a disappointed babysitter.

“He broke the rules,” Ume said, inclining her head in a small nod of deference.

“We were off duty!” Haru added, doing no such thing. _“You_ said—“

“Ah-ah,” he interrupted, wagging a finger. “I already told you _these_ Players made for a _special_ exception. Now, let’s put the claws away and come home.”

They hated the way he talked. Like none of this mattered. Like it was all a game to him.

“Isn’t it, though? Isn’t it just a _Game?”_

 

**— >>RIKU**

“…Riku?”

“…Yeah?”

“…Why did they stop?” his partner whispered to him.

Ume had frozen where she stood, a glowing ball of energy now behind her back like she was a child hiding a toy she didn’t want her parent to see. Her head was bowed slightly, and she seemed to be talking to someone.

“Can we… can we leave?” his partner asked.

Just as Riku was about to answer, Ume’s head snapped back up. She gave Riku a look that could erase, and suddenly they were both being pulled out of battle.

Riku and the Reapers appeared back on the platform, as if nothing had happened.

“Hey!” Riku yelled as the two Reapers took to the air. “Why are you running?”

“Boss’ orders,” Haru said bitterly as the two of them vanished into the darkening sky.

 

Riku stared after them, bewildered, then jumped as his phone buzzed with a series of notifications. After four days of no messages, he’d completely forgotten he had one. He quickly pulled it out.

###: _Don’t think I didn’t hear you knocking out there earlier!_  
###: _Very impressive shift, by the way._  
###: _Why don’t you stop by the ol’ HQ for a proper visit? Someone’s ~really~ looking forward to seeing you!_

Riku snapped his phone shut and broke into a run towards the fractured building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> throwdown at square enix hq
> 
> okay y’all we’re getting into what they call the boss rush so I foresee the next chapters being longer than usual! This means updates will probably shift into a weekly cadence until we finish this bad boy.
> 
> And we are coming up to the end—I didn’t want to burn out my momentum by trying to fill a whole 7 days ahaha. I’m not sure how many chapters I’ll end up with, but it’ll probably be around 20?  
> Thank you all so so much for sticking with me for this, it’s been an absolute blast to write!
> 
>  
> 
> [Neku with WINGS](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1118729744441315329)


	16. Day 4 - Press Triangle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait til wednesday but I caved. I wanted to post this so bad

**— >>SORA**

Sora tuned to the Noise plane, forgoing the skull pin because he apparently didn’t need it to reach Vanitas anymore.

“Hey Vanitas?”

Sora jumped as the planes parted right beside him to reveal Vanitas.

“Oh!”

“What.” Vanitas was speaking through his teeth again, but he’d responded so quickly Sora wondered if he’d been looking for something to do. It probably got boring, just waiting for things to fight. Had he ever gotten take-out, or gone shopping?

“Do you… Would you ever want to come out of the Noise planes?”

“The what?”

Sora blinked, uncertain. “The… The planes here, with the monsters you make. Those are the Noise planes.”

“Of course I know what the Noise planes are, _idiot,”_ he said, but Sora saw that his brows were knit in something like confusion.

Even though the Noise planes were what had allowed him to reform, and even though he seemed to know how they worked, Sora realized Vanitas hadn’t had anyone to explain what the heck was going _on._ Even though he’d been really busy, and even though Vanitas kept cutting their conversations short, Sora felt bad for not having told him more.

“I’m playing the Reaper’s Game, with Riku, here in Shibuya. I have to do missions to get out, and so does Riku. He’s playing the Reaper’s Game in Shinjuku, which isss…” Sora turned to point vaguely. “…over there.” Sora noticed Vanitas hadn’t interrupted him yet, so he went on.

“You’re in the Noise planes, where we fight the Noise for our missions, but if you came out, into the one I’m in, there’s people, and shopping, and—”

“I’m not going back there,” Vanitas finally interrupted. “That one _hurts._ And I’m _done hurting.”_

“But… you can’t stay in there all by yourself forever.”

Vanitas flinched, almost like he’d been struck. Sora remembered he’d said something similar to him before he’d started screaming, and felt a twinge of panic at the thought of upsetting him like that again. Sora reached his hand out preemptively, but Vanitas slapped it away.

“Don’t _touch me.”_

“I’ll help you,” Sora pressed. “I’ll hold on to you so it’s easier.”

Vanitas stared at him, expression twisting oddly. It wasn’t a face a normal person would make—eyes like he wanted to, mouth like he didn’t. Wearing that mask all the time, Vanitas probably wasn’t used to controlling his expressions.

Sora took it as a signal to seal the deal. “When you’re ready, we can go together, okay?”

Vanitas scoffed and turned away, but, pointedly, didn’t say no.

That problem solved, Sora circled back to the reason he’d called Vanitas in the first place.

“So Vanitas, you’re really good at going through the planes, right?”

That brought his grin back. “Better than _you_ could ever hope to be.”

Sora nodded. “Right! So, Riku needs to figure out how to get into one that’s locked. How could he do it?”

Vanitas’ face soured with disdain. “If he can’t get in, that’s not _my_ problem.”

Sora gave a loud sigh and closed his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right… I mean, there probably isn’t _anyone_ who could get in… No one’s strong enough.” He waited for a few seconds, then peeked one eye open to look at Vanitas, hoping he hadn’t picked up on Sora’s attempt at a ploy. Vanitas’ smile had returned, a cocky glint in his eyes as the roots of an idea took hold in his head.

 _“I_ am.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku stopped a few blocks from the fractured building, and braced himself against a wall, panting. He peeked around it to take a glimpse of the structure. He couldn’t see anyone around the base. Everyone was probably inside on account of the hastening rain. Not that ordinary people were a concern right now—Riku doubted he could hurt them if he tried.

He pulled back behind the wall, and turned his face to the sky. It would have been grounding to be able to feel the rain on his skin, but he’d have to settle for the smell. Rain in the city was different from rain on the islands. There, the smell of the rain churned with the salt of the sea, the life of the ocean, and the heavy trees of the islands. City rain was cool and flavorless, and it tugged at some sorrow inside him he couldn’t place.

Eyes still closed, Riku felt a battle shift, and he opened them to find another frozen Noise—a porcupine, this time. This would be so much easier with Gummiphones.

“I’ve got a plan, Riku!” his partner called. “_—-_--__ is going to try to help!”

“Who?” Riku started, thrown by the sudden surge of static. What had his mind just filtered?

“O-Oh, I mean, my Reaper friend!”

Riku set that aside. He couldn’t allow his head to get hung up on the little things right now.

“So, we’re ready when you are, Riku!” his partner said. Riku imagined him pumping his fists. “And I’m with you, no matter what!”

Riku chuckled at the clear inference that he shouldn’t expect the Reaper friend to feel the same. “Right. We’ve got this.”

Riku straightened his shoulders, and took a grounding breath. “Partner.” The word still wasn’t the right one, but it was close. Close enough to know that the heart he’d fallen for was tied to his, on the other end of a line that couldn’t break. “I’m going over there. Are you ready?”

“I was born ready, Riku!” came his easy response.

“Pff, I highly doubt that.”

His partner’s resounding laughter steadied him like a dock on the shore.

 

The Yozora who was not Yozora sat atop the building, as if mocking the real one's habit back on the skyscraper. There in the downpour, looking up at the building’s rain-slicked windows, Riku had the strange sensation of being upside down—of another side, another scene he couldn’t place.

Whoever was inside Yozora launched off the building, and from behind him spread enormous, distorted black wings. They were an evolution of the shattered wings Riku had seen on a crumbling Yozora—broken and mangled, vast and full.

His feet touched down easily, head rising as his spine rolled straight. On his face spread the easy sort of smile that Yozora had never found easy, and from within their sockets his bright blue eyes glinted like a cat’s. Every aspect of the thing before him was an insult to Yozora. Right now, he was just another Reaper.

Riku squared his feet. “Last chance to give him up without a fight.”

“A fight, huh?” he teased. He used Yozora’s voice like he was turning the knobs on a synthesizer, twisting and distorting it to his own cadence. “You sure you’re ready to go toe-to-toe with my little pet project?”

Glitches shuddered through the form before him, and Riku watched in horror as Yozora’s face was replaced with his own. “He’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeve by now,” came Riku’s voice, run through that same corruption. “After all, he’s been such a good little _parasite.”_

The cat eyes kept their steady gaze on Riku as Yozora’s form changed again and again to people Riku didn’t recognize, until he saw the one with the ball cap. A kid who couldn’t be any older than 12, wearing the ball cap from the observation deck. Riku thought he might be sick.

In another instant, the boy was gone, and Yozora was crackling back to the surface. Riku realized the coward had yet to show his own face.

“I didn’t think he’d last this long—delicate as he was—and I certainly didn’t expect him to get so chummy with the two of you. I guess I should have known how contagious that smile can be!”

He wouldn’t.

Yozora’s face changed one last time, and as his mouth opened, Riku’s favorite voice came out. “If I’m being honest, he surpassed all expectation!”

 _That_ face wasn’t his to wear.

Something inside Riku snapped, and he lunged.

The Reaper inside Yozora laughed with his partner’s voice as a pulse of distortion surged from within him, tossing Riku back in its currents. Behind them, glitches ran up and down the fractured building as if it were an antenna, sending signals into the sky. On its next pulse to the ground, the signal washed through Riku, and he watched the last shreds of rainy day colors fade from the world as the place that had felt so much like a battlefield became a real one.

Riku saw that Yozora’s face had reappeared, and a layer of him seemed to lift away as it tuned to a slightly different plane. That meant…

“I’m ready, Riku! Let’s do this!” The voice came to him like the sun.

 

**— >>SORA**

The Yozora before him wore the same face as the ads in the toy store, but Sora knew right away that it was somehow _wrong_ —wrong in the same way the voice had been through their connection. He was equally certain that the wings didn’t belong either, looking like they’d been assembled by a broken machine, then stretched through a malfunctioning conveyor belt.

The person controlling Yozora spread his arms wide as if in welcome as bright blue cat eyes appraised him. Hadn’t the Reaper woman had the same kind? “Sora! Big fan, big fan! I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to meet face to face!”

“Then why are you wearing someone else’s?!” Sora shot back.

He laughed. “Good one, good one! Afraid I’m not quite ready for _that_ show and tell. Sorry to disappoint!”

Sora summoned fire to his palms, trying his hardest to be threatening. “This is your last chance to give Yozora back!”

Yozora’s smile widened. “Now Sora, was I not clear enough before? If I’m not mistaken, I said you’re going to have to _make me.”_

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku’s keyblade met his palm like a hand pulling him up from the ground, and he leapt forward to slash at the Reaper in Yozora. An unexpected metal _twang_ met him midair, and Riku’s eyes widened as they fell upon the _keyblade_ in Yozora’s hand. It wasn’t any of his or anyone else’s—it was one he’d never even _seen._

The Reaper pushed back and swung, forcing him backwards.

Words spilled from Riku’s mouth like they’d been waiting on his lips. “Why?! Why do you have the keyblade?”

He just turned it in his hand, as if he were appraising it at the store. “Oh, this old thing? Yozora’s had it for _ages._ He didn’t tell you?”

Riku couldn’t falter. There was still some tangled despair in his chest telling him he needed to keep fighting, no matter the cost. Yozora must have had a good reason. Besides, it wasn’t like Riku had ever taken the time to explain the ins-and-outs of keyblades to _him._

Riku raised his keyblade, and lunged.

 

**— >>SORA**

Fighting another keyblade wielder without a keyblade wasn’t something Sora enjoyed, but he enjoyed the _talking_ even less.

“Such a shame about Kairi—” he said, batting away a fireball with ease, “—to think you weren’t strong enough to save her, and now you aren’t even strong enough to get back to her…”

“I _will_ get back to her, and everyone else!” Sora yelled, once again fighting off tears. “They’re all waiting for me!” He tried electricity.

It hit him, but the fake Yozora hardly flinched. “Ohh, but what about Riku? He’d be waiting with them if you hadn’t dragged him in to fix your mistake!”

Sora sent a Firaga this time, chest burning with hurt and rage.

But the fake Yozora just went on, like a train he couldn’t do anything to stop. “And to top it all off, you won’t be able to save the friend you didn’t even get the chance to meet!”

“That’s not true!” Sora didn’t care who or what he was, he just wanted him to _shut up._

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku came at the Reaper again—steadied by the fact that he at least knew what kind of weapon he was up against. Their keyblades crossed and crashed, but Yozora’s seemed to know every move he would make. Riku, on the other hand, found Yozora’s parries wildly unpredictable.

“It’s too bad I didn’t have the chance to thank him for all he’s done for me,” he quipped, unleashing another flurry of jabs with his keyblade.

Riku was losing ground. In the midst of it all the only thing his wild thoughts could form was _I need him back. I need him back._ Desperation ebbed through his bones, settling into his left wrist. Though the fracture had healed by now, it still ached in the rain.

When had he broken it…?

His distracted thoughts created an opening, and Riku was thrown backwards, skidding across the wet ground.

“All right, all right… I guess it’s about time we got serious.”

A black wave of static shook the very air, and Yozora’s form began to jitter and split, unfolding and wrapping in on itself as it compounded into something else.

Pieces and shards of every Noise they’d fought, and plenty they hadn’t, began to ripple through Yozora’s body in monstrous waves.

No. No no _no._

Their shapes spread wide to wrap around him like black-thorned vines of the Enchanted Dominion, layer upon layer sliding into him like massive black armor, until Riku couldn’t see any trace of his human form. Nothing but crackling Noise.

  
  
**— >>SORA**

All Sora could think as he watched the transformation was how he hoped this one couldn’t _talk._

The monster that the fake became was so covered in those flat-but-not-flat symbols it was difficult to look at, and each inked edge looked sharper than a scalpel. As for the animal parts, every inch was deadlier than the last. Snake tail, bear claws, wolf jaws, all beneath those massive raven wings—it was like the worst grocery list ever.

This wasn’t going to be easy, but Sora had fought worse—way worse, he thought, pushing down the other voice in his head screaming that he didn't have the _keyblade_ this time.

Sora threw a flurry of blasts at Noise Yozora, testing the strength of its new blackened armor with the fury lingering from all of the things the fake had said to him. It didn’t seem to have any weaknesses to exploit, but that didn’t matter. It was going down.

The beast swung a serpentine tail at him, but Sora managed to roll beneath it. Its enormous size had made it sluggish.

Out of the corner of his eye, behind the massive creature, Sora saw a small plane rift form. He had to hide his excitement from the Noise as Vanitas pulled himself into the field. His yellow eyes glinted triumphant, but, to Sora’s relief, he didn’t make a sound.

Sora gave him a silent nod before quickly resuming his flurry of attacks with renewed fervor, and Vanitas drove his hands into the planes again, searching for the one that ran alongside theirs.

 

**— >>RIKU**

After a flurry of attacks on Noise Yozora, in a break between his combos, Riku spotted a slit of distortion, suspended in the air near the building behind them. It was too small to concern himself over—not when there was a massive beast of a Noise trying to kill him as it held his friend captive inside—and he turned his attention back to the fight.

The Noise Yozora was a vicious amalgamation of monsters, so smashed together that Riku spent every other moment hoping there was still some way to get Yozora _out._

Just as he landed a solid hit on the Noise, Riku’s eyes flashed behind them as the small tear in the rifts was finally torn open. He touched back to the ground, tensing.

The person who stepped out was something Riku’s mind could hardly process. Reaper wings—the friend his partner had talked about? But the suit he wore looked just like the one Riku had donned when he'd been taken by the darkness. And the face... it fit differently, another soul beneath its skin, but the resemblance was undeniable.

Did his partner have a Yozora he wasn’t telling him about?

The Partner-lookalike Reaper staggered, dazed, as if the shift had been difficult.

The creature finally picked up on Riku's lapse in attention, and spun its heads to follow his gaze. In the next moment, as if its massive body was running on a delay, it turned on the Reaper, arm snaking out to grab him before he had the chance to react. The enraged, animal scream he let out rang in Riku's ears, haunting his mind with visions of his partner in the same peril in the opposite plane.

As the small Reaper struggled in the thing's massive grip, it surged with a pulse of glitches, and his screams became flayed with distortion as it shuddered through his form. When the pulse ran back, the Reaper was gone, and as the wave recoiled through the beast’s body, it sizzled with new flicks of black and red that glowed like magma between its layers.

It had assimilated the Reaper—his partner’s friend—into its form like he was just another Noise.

 

**— >>SORA**

Something shuddered through Noise Yozora as it twisted horribly, coming apart then back together again as it lost whatever coherent form it had to bubble into a terrifying, writhing mass that sparked with red heat. A thousand blue eyes opened from everywhere within it, and Sora froze.

His mind began a loop of the swirling torrent of Heartless parting against Riku’s keyblade as he stood steady before him, like a rock in a stream.

But then that rock crumbled, and so did he.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Feeding on whatever was inside that Reaper, Yozora’s ghastly form had evolved into something that was truly the stuff of nightmares. Riku kept his attacks up, determined to leave _some_ sort of mark on it, but it just kept reforming under his blows.

It raised itself up, as if tired of toying with him, and crashed down onto the concrete like a high tide against the rocks. Riku was slammed into the ground.

As it enveloped him, Riku fought against his dulling mind as he felt it forcibly dragging him down into unconsciousness, into sleep. That was when the true nightmares began.

Rage and despair poured into him like boiling water, trying to change him from within, but this realm of dreams was too familiar to hold him. Riku broke free of the assaulting undertow and spun into the weightless depths, navigating their currents with ease. It was like swimming. It was _easier_ than swimming. He didn’t know where this muscle memory was coming from, but he let it guide him. He dove deeper, trying to find some shred of something that could lead him out.

In the darkness around him that stretched endless, Riku spotted an oddly warm light emanating from within the dream depths, like a lighthouse on the water. For a moment, the fog parted to reveal a warm bubble, tinted like a familiar sunset. It was a way back. It was home. Riku dove at it with all his might.

 

Riku was on the islands at sunset, perched with Kairi on their tree. Pieces of another failed raft littered the beach, a few of them already lost to the tides. It would be a pain to clean up, but every raft they built was a raft closer to getting off these tiny islands, this tiny world.

He jumped as someone touched his hand. Kairi wouldn’t…

Riku turned to see a childlike Yozora at his side, holding his hand. He’d appeared between him and Kairi, filling the empty space that laid between them in too, too many of Riku’s memories. Yozora smiled to himself as he looked out at the water, expression unassuming and innocent, a silent declaration that he definitely _hadn’t_ just laced Riku’s fingers between his.

“Yozora…” The way his own voice sounded, Riku could tell he was younger too. He gently squeezed Yozora’s hand, as if to make sure he was actually there.

Yozora said nothing, and leaned his head onto Riku’s shoulder.

Kairi let out a soft sigh and leaned on Yozora’s other side, like they’d known each other all their lives. “There’s always tomorrow,” she said.

Yozora nudged Riku’s ribs. “Unless Riku never figures out how to tie the ropes…” he goaded.

Riku laughed as his own voice rose to his defense, words coming forth like a paopu washed ashore. “Get real, Sora! As if you did anything but doze off…”

Sora.  
_Sora._  
**_Sora._**

 

Riku woke as unfathomable waves of memory crashed against the shores of his mind. They couldn’t take it—the sands weren’t made to hold all the surf inside them. The memories spilling out of his dreams were running from him, ebbing and receding too fast to hold onto. The waking world was taking everything again.

He couldn’t keep it all. But he didn’t have to. He only had to keep one word. A word Yozora had given him. A word he clutched to his chest like the last flame in a world drowning.

_Sora._

 

**— >>SORA**

Coldness welled in the pit of his stomach as fire lit up his chest. There in a darkness so deep he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, Sora felt himself sinking, as if his body itself was melding with the black pitch that enveloped him. This was always how it began when he lost control, when he awoke to lost time with Donald and Goofy’s worried faces staring down at him on the ground.

The rage simmered into a boil in his chest. This couldn’t happen. Not before they’d gotten Yozora back. Not before he’d gotten back to—

“Sora!” A voice cut through everything, like fireworks piercing the dark night sky.

It was impossible.

It was dawn.

It was _his._

The flames in his chest sank into a warmth that reverberated through his entire body, and every inch of his being sang in tune with Riku’s heart.

He answered the call.

 

**— >>RIKU**

_Sora_ burst to his side, through walls and Games and planes alike, and all at once they were together, names ringing clear in each other’s hearts. _Sora_ —he couldn’t get over the sound the name had made on his lips. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he drank in _Sora_. His warm face and bright smile and the beauty of his _everything_. The _Sora_ beside him was _real,_ as real and as touchable as anything had ever been. _Sora_ was _here_ and Riku was _his_.

Riku’s mind still couldn’t breach the dam that held his memories, the prison that had locked _Sora_ away, but his heart knew what to do.

He unclenched his fist to hold out his hand to _Sora,_ and _Sora_ took it without hesitation.

 

**— >>SORA & RIKU**

Their touch was the collision of a world rended apart, mended at last to form a single whole. Their warmth and love radiated through each other’s fingertips as they held the enormous keyblade aloft.

The keyblade was the melding of both their hearts, the synchronization of their Soul. It was where the earth met the sky, and its name was Horizon.

 

They brought down the keyblade on the legion of Noise, and it parted them as easily as a boat on the sea, sending up flurries of static like the white crests of waves.

The sea of blue eyes seemed to panic beneath them, and as it pulsed with glitches, scrambling to reform itself again, Riku and Sora caught brief sight of a face with one red eye, staring glossily back at them through a part in a crowd, and it reached them like the red light of a sunset.

Horizon raised once more, lifted by three hearts, and as three hands brought it down, its light burst over Yozora’s form like tides that carried lost rafts back to shore, and the last of the Noise flew from him in a flurry of beating wings.

 

**— >>???**

He lay beneath them, a shattered, broken thing. A soul stitched through shards, a broken mirror catching too many reflections at once. Frightening. Frightened. They shouldn’t see him like this—not them. Never them. Not with nothing holding him together, his soul bared down to the very pit of him.

Yet still, even still, they brought their hands to his, and cradled his heart between the lights of their own. They gave him their warmth, but not their will. There was no crushing pressure, burying him as if he were already dead. No—as if he were truly dead, forever dead, lost in the sea of static where nothing would ever be itself again.

He had been unmade, and they were remaking him with the love in their hearts.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora blinked his eyes open to find two faces huddled above him. They were the most beautiful faces he had ever seen, and they were both looking at him instead of each other. Dully, he wondered why they weren’t kissing. They were together. They were _finally_ together, goddammit. They should be kissing.

Sora’s attention was entirely focused on Yozora, but behind Riku, Yozora thought he could see the outlines of wings, almost like a Reaper’s… but then they were gone.

They weren’t saying each other’s names, even though they had those. (He’d gotten Sora’s name to Riku, hadn’t he?) They were saying another name.

He registered a pair of hands clasping each of his, and they slid up his arms to support his shoulders as he was raised from the ground to sit beside them.

Tears rolled down three faces as Sora and Riku pulled Yozora into a hug that held him here, solid in their arms, and for the first time in over a week, he felt alive again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Dream](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1122382928812462080)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> me, hollering: I”M NOT STOPPING THIS CHAPTER UNTIL MY BOY COMES HOME
> 
> okay okay NOW the next chapter will probably be in a week bc I'm not as far ahead as usual, but I very well might just continue to be absolutely feral, we'll have to see
> 
>  
> 
> [Catch up on art here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)
> 
>  
> 
> Also!! on top of being my resident KH expert, [corfidbizna on tumblr](https://corfidbizna.tumblr.com/) is the genius who came up with the name Horizon for the gayblade... thank u
> 
> and lastly the —>>??? part is inspired by Noah from the Raven Cycle books, my son


	17. Day 4 - This Door Just Screams Endgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (The title is from something Shiki says in TWEWY not the hit movie I can't be assed to see)

**— >>VANITAS**

Vanitas knew the call of Sora’s heart as if it beat in his own chest. It was how he’d followed him this far, into this world of static and emotion made manifest.

He could feel the brush of Sora’s presence throughout Shibuya, but the battle plane Riku summoned him to was different. The channels Vanitas had called home for the past few days ran alongside each other like currents of water, blood in veins. He understood their simplicity, and in return, they bent to his will. But when Sora went into battle with Riku, instead of dipping up or shifting right, it was as if he’d plummeted, deep, deep into the very depths of reality. From a death like sleep into a sleep like death.

A coward’s voice in his head said it was impossible to follow him—not that far.

He crushed it.

Vanitas shifted himself, piece by piece and layer by layer until he’d made it to the plane where Sora’s heart laid. Anyone else would have come to pieces, but he was _Vanitas,_ and _Vanitas_ was indomitable.

And when he stripped himself from the folds of that final layer, the first thing he saw was Sora’s proud smile. Sora’s pride in _him,_ on naked display for all the world to see and _know_ that it was _Vanitas_ he was proud of.

No one had ever looked at him like that.

Vanitas’ body felt like a worn book passed through too many hands, layers and pages hanging loose, but he just had one more plane to go, and that smile was the glue that held him through the final shift.

 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _fair._ He’d _done it,_ done something _no one else could have._ But in the end he’d been too weak. Just like before, and before, and before, and before.

He didn’t stop screaming and raging, even when his mouth was gone and his form was tugged and stretched thin throughout the monster’s body, strings being pulled by another will. He wasn’t a puppet. _He wasn’t a puppet, and it wasn’t ending like this._

 

**— >>YOZORA**

“All right, all right, that’s enough.” He sniffed. “I mean it, you guys.” Yozora’s eyes wouldn’t stop welling, and even though Riku and Sora still had tears in theirs, Yozora’s only seemed to be coming from the feelings inside his own chest. The rain had let up for a bit, but the light drizzle wasn’t hitting them—as nice as that would have been to use as an excuse for how wet his cheeks were. He hadn’t felt his own feelings so strongly in what felt like _multiple_ weeks, and he was having trouble reigning them back in.

Sora and Riku had dragged Yozora away from the black stain that had been left on the concrete beneath him in the wake of their attack, but Sora hadn’t let go of Yozora’s hand yet, waterworks still in full, proud operation. “But… but are you okay?”

Riku had stopped actively crying, but he still had the look of a dog who was convinced they’d done something wrong. “Yozora, I’m so sorry I—I let you go out alone, after—”

“Oh my _god,_ Riku,” Yozora cut him off, chuckling through the tears. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to punch that pretty face of yours.” Crap. Had they noticed that?

But Sora just laughed and made a wet sort of sniffle. “Riku’s the only guy I know who’d find a way to blame himself for bad weather.”

Riku pursed his lips in attempt to hold back a smile, and Yozora pulled his eyes away.

“So… how long was I out?” he asked. “Because last time I checked…” He gestured to Sora, sitting next to him, physically, in Shinjuku. “…there was an impenetrable _wall_ between you two.”

Sora looked at Riku, eyes now brimming with wonder instead of tears. “Riku called me,” he said, as if it had been the simplest thing in the world.

Riku looked at Yozora. “It was thanks to Yozora. He gave me your name.”

Yozora felt his face heat up with embarrassment, and a begrudging pleasure.

Sora brought his other hand to Yozora’s, so that Yozora’s hands were sandwiched between both of his. All this touching after over a week of walling himself off was alien and strange, and he never wanted it to stop. “Yozora! That’s amazing! Thank you, so so much!” Sora pumped his hand eagerly.

Yozora gave him a shy smile, unable to help himself. Of all the things he’d been screaming, locked inside his own body, he’d tried to make Sora’s name the loudest. That way, if he… well, no matter what happened, Riku could find it. “You’re welcome, Sora.”

Yozora glanced sideways at Riku. “…That come through okay?”

Riku’s eyes were wet as he nodded.

It had actually worked. Riku had Sora’s name back, for good.

Sora beamed, brighter than all the city lights combined, and eyed Riku expectantly, like a puppy waiting for a treat. “…Can you say it again?”

Riku looked just as excited. _“Sora.”_

Sora practically squealed with delight, and Riku let out an awkward guffaw.

Yozora smiled. They were both unbearable.

 

It was time to figure out what to do next. Even though they’d finished the fight—the fight against _him,_ the black stain was keen to remind him—they were still in some sort of battle plane. The headquarters building behind them was still pulsing, gathering energy and sending it into the sky. If Sora and Riku’s memories were any indication, that much power shooting into the sky was never a good sign.

Riku was looking with him, expression solemn. “We need to put an end to this.”

“We _will!”_ Sora said with Sora determination that seemed mixed with something else darker.

Riku nodded, then raised his arm as the keyblade flashed into his palm. “We haven’t left the battle plane, which means these still work. They can’t take us by surprise anymore.” He banished it.

Sora turned to Yozora, a lightbulb going off in his head. “Hold on! Yozora, you have a keyblade too, right?”

“Y-Yeah,” Yozora stammered, a bit thrown by the question, and glanced at Riku to gauge his reaction. “Sorry that I…”

Riku put a sympathetic hand on Yozora’s knee. How was he such a saint?

“What’s its name?” Sora pulled his attention back, eyes bright.

Oh yeah. They had names, didn’t they? Yozora hesitated, panicked he’d have to come up with one on the spot, but the keyblade’s name rose to meet him from the depths of his mind. “…Verum Rex.”

Sora's mouth dropped open. "So you _do_ know about the video game!"

Riku looked between them, confused. "Video game?"

Yozora winced. He'd been trying not to _think_ about the "Yozora" he'd found in Sora's memories, because he had no earthly _clue_ what the fuck that had been about. Because even with all the people in his head, he wasn’t sure he’d ever have enough brain power to unpack all _that._

“…Look, the name just came to me, all right?" he said, neither confirming nor denying any… _familiarity_ with the scenes from the game trailer.

Sora was about to say more when his phone began buzzing insistently at his hip.

Yozora almost laughed at the normalcy of it. "You wanna take that?"

Sora hurriedly dug it out of his pocket, and Yozora watched his face drop like a kid being called to the principal's office. "Fudge," he breathed.

"Language," Yozora chided.

Sora clutched the phone to his chest as if he'd already answered and didn't want it to hear. "It's Neku," he whispered. His eyes darted between them, praying for someone to provide him with an excuse not to answer. No such luck.

After a beat, Sora hopped up anxiously and skittered a little ways away from them before flipping open the phone.

Yozora looked back at Riku, who was staring after Sora more than a little forlornly, fist clenched atop Yozora's knee. "So... did you..."

"No," Riku said, anticipating the question. "Not yet. They still have the rest of him."

"Right... Guess we haven't won this yet." Yozora's eyes drifted to Riku's hand lingering on his knee. He couldn't believe he was stable enough for them to touch like this. It felt like an anomaly, like breaking the rules. Riku unclenched his hand to give Yozora's knee a fond squeeze.

"But I have his name, thanks to you." Yozora’s gaze flicked back up to Riku, who was looking right into his eyes. His heart did an embarrassing little leap in his chest.

"I... I don't know what to say, Yozora,” he went on. “There aren't words."

Yozora brought his hand to rest on Riku's, and gave him a half-smile. "You're welcome, Riku."

 

**— >>SORA**

"SORA! You SAID you would CALL ME!" Neku was yelling over the phone. "I thought that was like, like a solemn promise or something!"

"I didn't mean to, Neku!" Sora pleaded. "I just... Riku called my name, and the next thing I knew I was in Shinjuku!"

 _"That's_ all it took?! What the hell are you people made of?!"

"I _promise_ to come back, as soon as we're done!"

“How do I know you won’t just break _that_ promise too?!”

Sora didn’t think he’d have to say this, but he was getting fed up. “Because we’re friends and friends _trust each other!”_

On the other end of the line, Neku froze. Then he let out a prolonged groan that put teenagers everywhere to shame. "...We'll figure it out when you get back, okay? Just… _don't_ get erased out there—there’s no telling what’s going on in Shinjuku.”

“…What do you know about Shinjuku’s Game?” Sora asked, unable to get the fake Yozora’s words out of his mind. Could Neku help him figure out who was in control, who’d been behind that?

"I mean, I know there _is_ a Game, but we haven't had contact with them as long as I've... been here. It’s like they cut the phone lines.” Sora recalled the way his connection to Yozora had felt when the fake had severed it.

"Haven't you ever gone over? To check?"

"I can't leave Shibuya.” Neku shut him down, so quickly that Sora knew there was a lot more to it than that.

"Not even for a little bit?"

 _"No._ Not while I'm... taking care of things, with Joshua gone. If... if you're in charge of a Game, you have to stay there."

"For how long?"

"Until you're not in charge anymore!" Neku snapped, voice shaking.

Sora was silent as he listened to Neku take a moment to compose himself.

“And… someone always has to be in charge.” Neku finished quietly.

Sora raised his eyes to the top of the building, to what they were about to face.

If they took back Shinjuku, someone would have to stay behind. Yozora deserved to go home, and Riku wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place. So…

"The... one who's in charge here is hurting people. He… he turned my friend into a monster, and… we almost didn’t get him back. We need to stop him. We’re… going to stop him. I might have to—”

Neku’s voice dipped low, so low it almost sounded like a threat. "Don't be the one to erase him."

“But… what if—”

 _"Promise me,_ Sora,” Neku said, with such bare, pleading conviction that Sora’s determination cracked. “It can't be you."

Sora opened and closed his mouth. If he said yes, if he promised Neku, who would it be instead? But if he said no… Sora had tested their friendship so much already, and he knew that if he didn’t do this one thing for Neku, it would be broken beyond repair. “…I promise," he said quietly. He'd find another way—he had to. _Everyone_ was coming home.

Neku seemed satisfied with that. “…And Sora?”

“Yeah, Neku?” Sora knew Neku was trying not to cry, which was enough to make him well up too.

“Promise… promise you’ll come back.”

Sora closed his eyes, hoping Neku could feel his heart reaching out to him across districts. “I promise, Neku.”

 

Sora hung up. He looked back at Riku and Yozora, who were busy talking about something, and wrestled the urge to run straight into Riku’s arms. After days of hearing Riku, but not being able to see him, Sora wanted to stare at him until he’d made up for the lost time, plus interest. He took in the sections of Riku’s hair that his fingers knew by heart, the strong arms that had held him too many times to count, the teal eyes that held love and worry in equal measures, the best lips he’d ever kissed. It hurt, to see all the pieces of Riku that they’d shared, and know that he couldn’t remember any of it.

The rain wasn’t hitting him, but Sora could imagine Riku’s wet hair easily enough, droplets like dew across his leather jacket. Sora wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him _so badly._ But he knew it wouldn’t feel right, it wouldn’t be the same until Riku understood what he meant to Sora—how much he loved him. Until he could remember all the times Sora had said it out loud.

He didn’t care if he had to wait for him forever. Riku was worth it.

Riku and Yozora continued to talk, and Sora felt a little out of place, standing there. This was Shinjuku, after all, and those two had gone through so much together that he hadn’t been there for. Sora tugged at the hem of his jacket, fiddling with the zipper. Then he noticed Yozora’s attention drift to him. Their eyes met, and Yozora gave him the slightest nod, silently beckoning him back. Sora jogged over gratefully.

“Soo… how did it go?” Yozora said, like he was asking Sora about his day at school.

Sora grimaced. “Neku’s really mad at me.”

“Saw that one coming,” Yozora said. “He’s like, in charge over there, isn’t he?”

_Someone always has to be in charge._

“Yeah… He said we could figure it out when I went back.”

“Did he say anything more?” Riku asked.

_It can’t be you._

“…No.” Sora’s eyes flicked down for just a moment. Riku didn’t notice, but Yozora did. He picked up on the little things, Sora observed. He picked up a lot of things.

But if he could tell Sora was lying, he shrugged it off. “He can stand to wait a while.”

Riku gave a small nod. “It’ll be all right, Sora.”

Riku saying his name was all it took to pull his spirits back up again. “Yeah!” Sora said.

Beside them, out of the corner of his eye, Sora thought he saw the dark stain ripple. He turned to look at it. It was different than it had been just a second ago, reflecting the light oddly like the surface of a puddle. Riku and Yozora followed his gaze.

As their eyes fell to the dark puddle, it suddenly undulated like black tar, and they both scrambled up, summoning their keyblades in defense. Sora’s heart sank down a notch at the sight of the weapons, hurt he couldn’t join them.

Sora stood to peer down into the depths of the puddle, but its darkness was too complete. He realized, though, that it didn’t… _feel_ dangerous. Maybe that wasn’t the right word—it felt dangerous, but not dangerous to _them._ The puddle began to bubble, as if in reaction to his attention.

“Sora, get back!” Riku yelled, just as a black-and-red gloved hand ripped itself from inside the darkness to claw at stable ground.

In a desperate lunge, it latched into Sora’s ankle, grip locking like a vice. A very familiar vice.

“Vanitas!” Sora blurted as the hand started trying to pull itself up. He’d assumed Vanitas had changed his mind and ditched them—after all, it wasn’t like he owed them anything. So what was he doing in the puddle? “Hold on!”

The recognition in his voice stalled Riku and Yozora for long enough for Sora to clasp his hands around the one on his ankle and _pull._ The darkness was heavy, though, and his shoes began to skid.

Sora flashed the other two a pleading look, and after one more beat they sprang into action, reaching him just in time to grab the second hand as it surfaced. Together, the three of them fished a shaking form from within the dark stain on the concrete.

Vanitas was on his hands and knees, keeled over and sputtering, black wings strangely bent like wet cardboard. He reminded Sora of a cat thrown from a capsized boat—dripping, trembling, and absolutely _livid._

“Vanitas, are you okay!?” Sora asked, laying a supportive hand on his shoulder. Instantly, he felt a vicious tug like Vanitas had ripped the rug out from beneath his heart—taking all he needed in one fell swoop.

The next thing they knew, he was on his feet and running towards the building, keyblade bared, like an animal gone rabid.

“COWARD! _COWARD!”_ he screamed. His keyblade collided with the barrier, sending up sparks. He clawed it across the invisible wall forehand and backhand, leaving a bright X that lingered as an afterimage. “You think _running_ will save you? You think this wall’s enough to stop me from _tearing you to pieces?!”_

Sora and Riku and Yozora’s eyes flicked between each other.

“Why is he…” Sora began, a little woozy from the transfer.

“When Yozora turned into that monster, it… pulled that guy inside it,” Riku explained. “I guess… he only just reformed?”

Yozora squinted at Vanitas, as if trying to place him. As Vanitas let out a feral howl at the wall, his eyes dawned with recognition. “Oh,” he said, barely audible.

Vanitas continued to scream and hit the barrier, and as he did, the marks he was making on it didn’t fade.

“If he’s mad at the person _inside…”_ Riku started.

“And if he’s actually making a _dent_ in that thing…” Yozora continued.

“Then we’re lucky to have him!” Sora finished.

 

Sora saw spiderweb cracks appear across the barrier as Vanitas raged against it like a tornado that only gained strength the more debris was lifted into its vortex. His wings expanded to match his fury, and as they did, his keyblade was banished. Vanitas twitched as his now-free hands morphed into massive Noise claws.

Unperturbed, maybe even encouraged, he drew his new hands back, and Riku said “Oh no” at the same moment Yozora said “Oh sh*t.”

As Vanitas wrenched his claws across the cracks, pieces of the barrier flew away like broken glass, and an entire section cascaded down to shatter upon the ground. But that wasn’t enough for him. He flung his hands left and right, widening the hole and beating the invisible barrier until the once-small cracks had been conducted stories high.

Vanitas dug his claws into the top edge of the opening, palms up like he was flipping a table, and as he pushed off his knees, he dragged his arms up in one focused burst that sent a break rattling through the entire barrier. When the force hit the top of the building, it had nowhere to go. It bounced around the entire building, through its already cracked structure, and the city held its breath.

In the next moment, it all came crashing down.

Riku and Yozora shielded their eyes as Sora burst forward, tackling Vanitas to the ground to protect him from the falling shards.

Sora held them both, faces turned down as the barrier fell. It hit them with blunt force as the shards disintegrated upon impact, but he clutched Vanitas tight, and eventually, he felt Vanitas’ arm wrap to clutch him back.

Finally, the endless roar of crashing died down, and through the resulting fuzz Sora could hear Riku and Yozora’s muffled footsteps running towards them. Riku took Sora’s hands, his touch spectacularly solid, but when Yozora took Vanitas’, the both of them shuddered. Yozora managed not to lose his grip, and as they were pulled up from the ground, Sora noticed that Vanitas’ claws were gone. His all-consuming rage had been replaced with his baseline glower, like a kid after a tantrum, and he batted Yozora off of him as soon as he’d made it to his feet.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora stepped back from Vanitas, hands up and feeling a little sick. The brief touch had brought him back to the two of them twined together inside the monster, and he guessed Vanitas had had a similar reaction. Obviously, the experience had been mutually unpleasant.

Vanitas continued to glare at him, unnervingly refusing to break eye contact, but Yozora stared back. The memories he’d gotten from Vanitas hadn’t been as clear as the ones he’d gotten from Sora or Riku, but he’d seen enough to fuel nightmares for years.

He didn’t want to come off as overly pitying—Vanitas would hate that—but he did want to say _something,_ so he went with a brief, weighted, “Sorry.”

For all the others knew, it was an apology for touching him, but Vanitas seemed to understand, because he broke their staring contest and turned to Sora.

“Sora.”

Sora perked up. “Yeah?”

 _“Sora,”_ he repeated angrily.

“What?” Sora was confused.

“Do you want something?” Yozora helped, tone indifferent.

Vanitas locked his jaw, refusing to say anything more. Sora looked at Yozora blankly. Yozora jerked his eyes toward Vanitas pointedly.

“Oh!!” Sora got it. “Vanitas, do you want a hug?”

Vanitas tensed, but didn’t move.

Taking that as confirmation, Sora wrapped his warm arms around him in a tight squeeze, and as Vanitas put his hands around Sora, his eyes lolled closed like a cat’s.

Riku looked at Yozora for help, but he just shrugged.

 

“So…” Riku started. “Are we ready to go up there?”

Yozora looked up at the building, resolve crumbling as cold fear seeped through his chest. He shook his head and turned away, sickened. “I should stay behind. I’m a liability. There’s… There’s no telling what he’ll do to me if he gets me again.”

Sora put a hand on his shoulder—comforting and bright. “He won’t, Yozora.”

The weight of Riku’s hand met his other shoulder—solid and understanding. “We’ll keep you safe. Besides…” Riku drew his free hand down to place it on Yozora’s, fingers touching through their fingerless gloves. “…You’ve stopped letting other people change you.”

Yozora almost swooned, but luckily Vanitas cut back in, clearly growing impatient with the display. “Well _I’m_ going to rip that bastard to shreds, and if you guys are done _holding hands,_ you’re free to _join me.”_

 

They hit the button on the main floor elevator, and astoundingly, it opened.

As the four of them climbed inside, Yozora noted how much more crowded their team had suddenly become. He allowed himself a peek at Vanitas, who had his arms folded as he leaned against the elevator wall, boring holes in the door with his eyes. He allowed himself a peek at Sora and Riku, who were boring holes into each other’s eyes with their hands held and fingers laced. Finally, Yozora allowed himself a small exhale of a sigh as he clenched his fists and prayed they’d all make it out of this alive.

 

**— >>HARU & UME**

The Boss had something planned, because _of course he did,_ because of course he had a backup plan for when his main event, the thing that was supposed to summon a new moon into the sky, didn’t _work_ because a few boys were very very in love with each other.

Haru and Ume’s eyes met incredulously. The Boss was standing with them on the roof, attention directed to the skies. The barrier had just broken, and the _four_ of them would be here any moment, because apparently the _rules_ didn’t matter to anyone but Haru and Ume anymore.

Ume spoke first. “What are your instructions?” As much as they despised him, he remained their Boss, their Master, their Composer.

He pulled his attention from the sky with great reluctance, hooded face clearly cracking. “ _Erase them.”_

Haru and Ume said nothing. For the past few days, their odds had been two against two. And even before that, it’d been two against a disjointed-at-best three.

But four? Four who had bested the Boss and torn down the barrier around _headquarters?_

They were staring down a second-death sentence.

“You’re scared they’ll get you first…” the Boss said pityingly, as if he were merely placating children afraid of monsters under their bed. “You two didn’t seem the cowardly type.”

“They took town the _barrier,”_ Haru ground through her teeth, so at least she’d have the satisfaction of voicing her thoughts _aloud._

“We need more power,” Ume added calmly, as the briefest panic flashed across Haru’s expression.

That seemed to soften the Boss’ hardening face. He did love his games. “What are you willing to pay?”

Haru and Ume’s hands drifted together, pinkies interlocking as they gazed at each other, memorizing the contours of each other’s faces.

“Whatever it takes,” they said in unison.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when sora has to PROMISE he won't become composer to help someone he met a couple days ago
> 
> We're sure in it now folks!!
> 
> And I don't want to "spoil" things but I do want to give a heads up that Joshua won't be in this fic--I want to write something else that focuses just on what's going on with him because he's actually my favorite TWEWY character lol. You'll have your turn you garbage baby
> 
> [Catch up on art here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)


	18. Day 4 - Desmodus and Canis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for some more of that body horror, a lot of POV shifts, and c u s s i n g

**— >>SORA**

As they exited the elevator on the top floor, they saw a string of open doors—presumably leading to the roof. Obviously, they were expected. Sora glanced at Vanitas, expecting him to bolt like a dog let off its leash, but he stayed beside them, even shifting slightly behind the group as they all walked forward. It was odd seeing him so shaken, but it at least looked like he wasn’t going to be reckless.

The doors led to a stairwell that opened straight to the roof, and as the four of them filed out into the open air, Sora pictured them as chess pieces being set on a board.

Two Queens hovered opposite them, with no King in sight.

Sora had fought one of them—the one with the short hair, and he could only assume the other one with the braid was Ume, the one with the buff grandpa. The shorter one floated level with Ume so that their blue eyes were beside each other to form a pair, and in the low light, Sora could almost see the missing King standing between them, looking through their eyes.

The short one had been so talkative before, but now she just stared at them, silent, as her girlfriend did the same.

Yozora was the first to speak. “Don’t you have anything to say?” He spread his arms. “Your freaky eyeball sh*t didn’t work like you thought it would, so what now?” Sora picked up on the trepidation beneath the fury in Yozora’s voice, and he couldn’t deny the suspicion growing in his own chest. Something was wrong with them.

“Weren’t you going to finish me off?” Yozora fumed. “You’ve come close enough before! Maybe this is your lucky day!”

Ume’s expression strained for a moment, then smoothed. The short one’s face remained blank, sapped of its former emotion. The last time Sora had seen her, she was screaming and throwing stuff at him, and he would really prefer that right about now.

At last Sora noticed that their opposite eyes—the ones that had been dark brown—had turned black as pitch, like pools of ink. Their blue ones stared ahead, but the black ones were glossy and lifeless.

“He’s got them too,” Vanitas said darkly. “They _reek_ just like he does.”

Sora had gathered that much. “Then why isn’t he _saying_ anything?” he asked. Not that he was complaining.

“It’s because he’s a _coward,”_ Vanitas growled. “A _weak, hopeless coward_ at the end of his rope.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the Reapers. “If he thought he was going to win, he wouldn’t be using his mindless _lackeys_ as a shield. He’d face us himself.”

No reaction. If anyone was listening, that should have riled them up at least a little. Not to mention, Vanitas had a point.

A lifeless tension settled to hang heavy in the air until finally, Yozora shuddered, and walked a nervous little circle as if to compose himself, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes.

Whatever they’d done to Yozora, they weren’t here to answer for it now. They were as trapped as he’d been.

Riku turned to him. “Will you be okay? You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” Yozora said, lowering his hands but keeping his eyes closed. He breathed in, then out. When he spoke again it was clear he was fighting to keep his voice even. “Haru and Ume can pay for what they’ve done once they’re back. And we _will_ bring them back.” He looked at everyone in turn, to make sure they’d understood him. “Until then, I’m not gonna waste my breath when they can’t even hear me.” The last part was pointedly directed at the Reapers.

“They’ll answer for everything,” Riku agreed as Sora nodded. “Once they’re back.”

Vanitas rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest.

As they drew their weapons, the two Reapers seemed to wake, called by the appearance of the keyblades, and Sora missed his more than anything.

Haru and Ume drifted apart, two chess pieces guided into their proper positions.

It was their move. “You two take Ume! We’ll take Haru!” Riku called to him and Vanitas, authority ringing clear in his voice.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora deflated, a little disappointed he couldn’t fight them _both,_ but nodded, thankful Riku had picked him instead of Sora. Vanitas still kind of freaked him out, and without a cursory understanding of what Vanitas was—without any knowledge of all the stuff with Ventus—he probably freaked Riku out a lot more.

As Yozora gripped his keyblade, it dawned on him that he’d summoned it to his left hand without even thinking. His chest lifted. He’d been left-handed before.

“Yozora!” Riku reclaimed his attention. “You ready?”

Yozora grinned. “I am now.”

Riku returned his smile with one of his own, and nodded.

Haru’s eye flashed with blue light, and she let out a screaming wail that raised through the air until it had swelled into a wild howl.

She jerked forward as Noise symbols bloomed from every muscle, expanding her form until a new beast dropped onto the ground before them.

She stood hunched on two legs, barely bipedal, ragged shoulders straining with breath. Peaked ears sprouted from her hair as her head nearly came in two at the jaw, splitting and stretching to become a long wolf snout filled with teeth. It was more than a little unnerving, watching a Noise transformation from the outside, and Yozora thanked the stars that Riku hadn’t ever seen him do it.

Haru’s great head rose toward them, both eyes a wild, slitted blue.

 

**— >>SORA**

As Haru’s transformation wrapped up, Ume’s began, as if they really were taking turns. Her head lurched down, shoulder blades peaking through her cloak until they began to unfold, spreading into enormous, webbed wings tattered by swirls of Noise symbols. Her arms jutted out straight at her sides as her fingers became dark, lengthened claws—delicate as needles. She let out a guttural hiss, opening her mouth and eyes to reveal a face pulled straight out of a vampire horror movie.

Sora shivered, but Vanitas’ eyes were bright with excitement. He drummed his fingers along the handle of his keyblade, attention flicking to Sora in a silent request for permission.

Sora nodded.

Vanitas lunged forward, but Ume pushed backwards off her feet, wings carrying her out of the way of his swing. Sora summoned his magic, and a crash of Thunder was enough to disorient her briefly. The next time Vanitas swung, his keyblade hit home.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku bat Haru back again and again alongside Yozora. They didn’t seem to be leaving much of a mark on her, but the human features still melded with the wolf’s made it hard to treat her like any other monster. A Reaper was still in there—a _person_ was still in there.

But that didn’t mean he could bend.

Something inside Riku had opened, unlocked by Sora’s name. This time in battle, now that he knew _Sora,_ there was something more that rang through the core of him, as loudly as Sora’s name. Riku existed to save Sora, to shield him from harm, to bring him _home._ It was his purpose, his being, the reason he was here. His moth-eaten memories told him that didn’t make sense, but his heart told him it was the only thing that did.

Riku’s shoulder blades prickled in an alien, familiar way, and he didn’t fight what was coming.

Something pulled itself from beneath his skin, having waited inside him like a sword in its sheath.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Riku leapt from behind Haru, lifted by _black goddamn bat wings,_ and brought his keyblade down on her shoulder, sending her staggering off balance. He finished his combo, still suspended in the air, and with a final hit the werewolf Reaper was sent skidding back, claw marks streaking the rooftop. Yozora watched, unable to do anything but gape at him.

Riku touched down with one foot, almost stumbling as he regained his balance on level ground. His wings flapped awkwardly at his back in a weak attempt to help steady him. He did a half-turn, brushing one of his hands back to verify that they were actually there. They definitely, definitely were. So was a bright sunset emblem, printed down the back of his jacket.

Riku looked at Yozora pleadingly, as if he had some explanation.

He did, and he was also in the process of working out the logistics how Riku could be a _Dream Eater_ right now—how he could have, maybe, been one this entire time—but it was all stuff Riku wouldn’t be able to understand, and frankly, didn’t matter right now. Haru had pulled herself up, and she was prowling back toward them.

Riku and Yozora spun as they heard Sora yelp. Ume had him in the air, wings spread, and threw him to the ground, where he tumbled into a sorry, dizzy heap. Vanitas howled and leapt to retaliate, sending out a vicious combo of blows with his keyblade.

Riku’s attention lingered on Sora like a loyal pet, but Yozora cut him off. “We’re taking Haru, remember? He’ll be fine!”

After a moment’s hesitation more, Riku returned his focus to their Reaper, leaping up to land another graceful hit. Yozora couldn’t get over the _wings._ They weren’t abstract like a Reaper’s, they were webbed and elegant and real enough to touch. What did they feel like…?

Yozora pulled his eyes back to Haru, and hurled a Firaga her way. She whipped around and lunged at him, teeth bared, and Yozora brought up his keyblade to block her.

With the keyblade caught between her gnashing teeth, Yozora had a split second to catch Vanitas pinned to the ground in a similar position, Ume’s vampire teeth trying to reach his throat. And they’d called _Yozora_ a parasite.

He brought his legs up and _kicked,_ pushing off of the keyblade in his hands in the same moment. Haru was sent tumbling back, and Riku took advantage of the opening by summoning a blast of Blizzaga.

Another cursory glance told Yozora that the other half of their troupe wasn’t doing so well.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora sat up, trying to reorient himself. The haze in his eyes drained in an instant when he spotted Vanitas beneath Ume’s teeth, one arm limp as he tried to hold her back with his keyblade alone.

Sora’s chest lit like a furnace in winter, pulse thrumming in his throat.

Vanitas spotted Sora, and their eyes locked for just a moment before Ume drove her teeth into his shoulder.

The ragged scream that ripped from Vanitas’ throat was all it took.

Sora tipped his head back, and sank where he sat—down, down into the pooling shadow that had formed beneath him.

  
  
**— >>RIKU**

Riku’s mind suddenly tilted, trying to invert itself. An ache coursed through his entire body, pulling his muscles as if his skeleton had decided it didn’t fit anymore. It reminded him a little of making the shift that had brought him to this plane of Shinjuku—like something was wrong with his teeth.

His eyes were pooling with something that wasn’t tears, and as his vision went red, he felt a scorching liquid ice enter his veins through the wings on his back.

 

**— >>VANITAS**

Vanitas’ shoulder lit up with searing pain—the kind that would have created a boss-level Unversed in any other world. But he hadn’t been producing the new creatures—the Noise—very well under the influence of Sora’s heart. Love was making him weak.

Then something black barreled into the bat Reaper, knocking her away from Vanitas in an instant. She screeched, and he heard a solid impact as she hit the floor of the roof. Had he made a Noise after all? Vanitas bolted up, ignoring the jolt of pain through his shoulder, to see what he’d created.

He blinked. Then he blinked again, disbelief spreading across his face.

A black stain with bright red eyes and _Sora’s_ outline had thrown the Reaper like a ragdoll, and was now clawing at her in a whirling tornado of limbs.

There was no one else around, no one else the shadow could be. Vanitas swelled with the unfamiliar sensation of pride.

Vanitas could feel the rage from here—it was being kicked into the air like an irresistible scent. It sang to the deepest pit of his heart.

He smiled, pulled himself to his feet, and drank it in.

 

They were dark creatures of emotion unchecked, brothers in arms at last. Everything was as it should be. They circled the Reaper like wolves in a dance, glowing eyes wide as they ripped and tore, leaving static wounds in their wake.

She fell to the ground, but before they could overwhelm her, she let out an ultrasonic screech that muddled their senses. Her form was rocked with a burst of glitches, and as she shuddered, the last remnants of her human features crackled away. She burst up from beneath them, throwing them back in the wake of her flight. As the gargantuan bat loomed above them, the force of its flapping wings shook the air.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

As an enraged, feral Sora rose from the darkness and darted to tackle Ume off of Vanitas like an attack dog, Riku stumbled. Before Haru could exploit the opening, Yozora landed a flurry of hits that pushed her back. He finished the combo with a Slowra to hold her for a little while.

Yozora watched as Vanitas raised himself, smiling like a maniac, and began to go through the same change willingly, purposefully, until he was nothing but a shadow with bright red symbols twined around his body and across his wings.

When Yozora turned back to Riku, another transformation had begun.

Riku fell to his hands and knees, back arched uncomfortably as his wings spread wide above him of their own accord. The sunset colors inside the symbol on his jacket had risen into an angry, feverish red. Riku’s head twitched and neck strained, red blooming and spreading beyond his irises until both eyes gleamed like pools of blood.

“…Riku?” Yozora said meekly, feeling too much like some hapless victim in a horror movie.

Riku was unresponsive, head down, but his ragged breath became audible as he opened his mouth. Dark droplets fell to the ground before him. Was he bleeding? Yozora took a hesitant step closer, coming down to one knee, and saw that the black liquid was coming from Riku’s _mouth_ —now filled with sharp, black, dripping teeth.

Yozora scoured their memories frantically, looking for some explanation, something he was supposed to do, but there wasn’t anything like _this, anywhere._

He jumped, nearly falling backwards as Riku’s wings unfurled again, like fabric being turned inside out. The wings that had laid beneath the Dream Eater ones were swirled with patterns of crimson, and they spread wide and frayed like a pirate flag on a dark sea.

Yozora’s focus dropped so completely that he accidentally banished his keyblade.

Suddenly Riku was up again, red eyes flashing like the streak of taillights at night as he flew back towards Haru and unleashed a ferocious flurry of blows with nothing but—another notable feature—blackened, claw hands.

Yozora’s dazed eyes rolled over to Sora and Vanitas, who had both become nothing more than streaks of black and blue and red roiling around a giant bat.

He looked back at Riku and Haru fighting just as wildly, the math equation of _this_ plus _that_ equals _that_ taking shape in his mind.

Sora had turned Riku into his Nightmare.

“Holy shit.”

Haru lurched toward Riku, teeth bared for his throat, but in an instant, Sora was there, and having no keyblade to block with, held Haru’s jaw open with his _hands._ His head tilted as blank red eyes stared down her gaping maw, like he was surprised to be there.

Yozora spun to Vanitas, whose wide, glowing eyes were trying to find where his battle partner had gone. Ume loomed above him, ready to snatch an unknowing victim into the air, and Yozora pushed out a groan as he broke into a run towards him.

_“Vanitas!”_

But he had spotted Sora facing down a new opponent, and let out a low growl as he prepared to run to his aid, completely ignorant of the shadow eclipsing him from above.

“For fuck’s sake!” Yozora sent out a Thundaga that hit Ume square in the wing, and as she recoiled, she was sent into a spinning dive that drove her back down to the ground.

Vanitas’ head spun in its socket as his attention reared back the opponent he’d yet to finish off.

Yozora let out a heaving breath as his three companions dissolved back into their frenzies. Wasn’t this all supposed to be wearing off by now?

Yozora stood there dumbfounded, seeing for the first time what a monstrous emotional feedback loop looked like from the _other_ side. All this rage, despair, and fury, and all he felt was lost. Sora and Riku really had fixed him.

He summoned his keyblade again. It was time to return the favor.

_Sora!_ He called on their hearts, like they’d called to his. _Riku!_

And Yozora wasn’t sure if it would listen, but he called to the third heart, too. _Vanitas!_

He shared his light—his light—like all the times they’d shared theirs, and dredged himself to exhume what the _calm_ had felt like—the _safe_ that swaddled his fragmented heart every time Riku had touched him when he was crumbling.

Sora stopped his attack on Haru, and straightened, head turning slowly towards Yozora. His bright eyes blinked—Yozora realized he hadn’t seen him _blink_ yet—and his head lolled and popped up like he’d brushed up against sleep.

_Sora. Sora, please. You have to come back._ Yozora pressed into his thoughts, into every inch of the connection they shared. _Rage will lead you nowhere._

Sora’s eyes flickered, and Yozora pressed on with all the things he wished he’d heard for the past eight days, all the things he wished he could have told the people who were gone.

_I know rage is easy. I know it makes things simple. But it’s a road with no end, and if you keep going, you can never come back. You’ll wind up in a dark, endless static where there’s no one you love. Where no one loves you._

_And everyone loves you, Sora._ Tears pricked his eyes. _They’re waiting for you, and it’s time to come back._

Like wind snuffing a flame, Sora’s eyes went out. He went limp, and began to fall backwards. Sensing something strange, his Nightmare burst to his side, catching him in his arms before he hit the ground.

The darkness drained from Sora’s features, and as he held him, Riku’s transformation began to invert again.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku woke, a heavy layer of sleep dragging itself from his mind like a thick blanket. He registered the touch of a hand on his cheek.

Sora was looking up at him from his lap, a gentle hand on his face. Riku flinched, but managed to fight the reflex to recoil and scramble backwards. Where was he? What happened? Why was he holding Sora? What had happened to Sora?

Sora’s touch was the only thing that kept him from panicking. He was so warm in his arms.

“Riku… That was really cool,” Sora said reverently.

“W-What?” Riku stammered. Why was Sora looking at him like that?

He looked at everyone like that, Riku reminded himself. He’d hugged that lookalike Reaper just because he’d asked—well, sort of. This probably wasn’t anything special.

Sora’s fingers slid down Riku’s cheek to his parted lips, and pressed a finger to expose one of Riku’s canine teeth. Riku’s heart leapt.

Sora’s eyes flickered to his, like he’d noticed something, and for a moment Riku thought he could see pink light reflected in Sora’s blue eyes.

“Your teeth were all sharp…” Sora said, smiling. His gaze drifted to Riku’s wings. “And your wings—your _wings_ —they were different this time.”

_“This_ time?” Riku blurted. Sora had seen them before? He didn’t know if he was supposed to be flattered, or mortified.

Something screeched and Sora’s touch receded, all too soon, as they both remembered there was still work to be done.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora and Vanitas kept up the fight against Haru and Ume, making certain that neither of them got near Sora and Riku prone, but suddenly, the darkness that shrouded Vanitas vanished in a stiff gust of wind.

As Yozora turned back to Sora and Riku, his own words echoed in his head.

_You really can just do it, can’t you?_

Only this time, he’d been the one who had done it. He’d brought them back.

Sora and Riku stood, hands clasped, love bright enough to light up the dark sky.

They unleashed a barrage of attacks together, arms locked as they whirled, two halves of the same whole. They corralled Haru and Ume’s great forms together, and as their final combo finished, Yozora saw the keyblade rise like dawn breaking over the horizon. It was the one they shared—the one he’d touched.

Their great keyblade came down on Haru, and then Ume, parting them from their Noise like a warm knife. They’d been weakened considerably, but Sora and Riku still made it look so simple—a clean cut.

Sora and Riku touched back down as the keyblade vanished, and Yozora stepped forward toward the Reapers.

They fell to their knees before him, monstrous features lingering on their bodies like stains. Haru shakily brought a clawed hand to clutch Ume’s, and they pulled themselves toward each other, holding each other in a tight embrace as Haru softly wept.

Ume stroked Haru’s head as she raised hers fearlessly to Yozora, daring him to exact the retribution he’d been waiting for.

Yozora had wanted to tear them apart. Punish them for all they’d done to him—be as cruel and pitiless as they’d been, and pick them apart piece by piece until there was nothing left but shattered shells like him.

When their Master had taken him over, thoughts and emotions like that had kept him fighting, but his mended heart couldn’t hold them anymore. Maybe it was all the Sora in his heart, but looking down at the two people before him, it was easy to see that they'd been through punishment enough.

“Yozora…” Riku said at his side. “What do you want to do?”

Sora waited for his answer, eyes cast down, while Vanitas glared at him expectantly, the punishment _he_ wanted for them clearly readable on his face.

“You two thought… thought you could rip me to shreds, convince me there was nothing to live for, wear me down until there was nothing left but a monster like _you.”_ Yozora said as he stood above them, righteous emotion heating up his chest. “But people aren’t that _breakable.”_

Haru shook her head, voice hoarse and pitiful. “Why are you even wasting your breath on us?”

Ume’s came out in a near-whisper. “We all know how this ends.”

These were the Reapers who’d tormented him for a week. Seeing them so resigned was pissing him off. “No. We _don’t.”_ He brought a palm to his chest. _“We_ decide how this ends.”

He crouched to their level, resolve ringing in his heart. “You give up your boss, and we let you go.” He meant it.

Haru’s eyes sparked with fear, and she turned her head away. To his surprise, it was Ume who opened her mouth.

“He’s—” she began.

Haru wailed beside her, and the two of them broke their embrace to clutch at their heads. Haru started whimpering, and Ume let out a hiss through her teeth.

“He’s…” Ume pressed on, through the pain. “He’s still in… the building… He—”

The two of them screamed, hands pressed to their blue eyes, and something burst between their fingers. Ume drew her hand back, looking for the blood, but there was nothing but the fading crackling of static.

Their heads sank as they clutched at each other for support, and, unable to bear it any longer, Sora scrambled down to lay his steadying hands on each of their shoulders. The Reapers were too weak to push him away, but Yozora doubted if anyone, alive or dead, would refuse a little support from the universe’s brightest smile. Yozora caught Vanitas letting out a small groan—like he was one to talk.

Haru and Ume turned their heads toward one another, each staring down into the empty socket, now flickering with latent static, that had once been their partner’s blue eye.

“He’s gone.” Haru said weakly. “He… he left.”

“H… He must have known…” Ume wheezed in a breath. “We were losing.”

Haru blinked her remaining eye, trying to get the budding tears out of it. “H… His plan was to ditch us?” she choked.

“Are you surprised?” Ume said dully.

“Where did he go?” Sora asked gently, though Yozora could tell he was furious.

Haru looked around blankly, trying to focus her remaining eye. “I… I don’t know, he… I thought the eyes were a part of him, that he couldn’t just—”

In the next moment, glitches rioted across the dark sky in an unfathomable pulse of static. The city shook beneath them, like a tremor from Shinjuku’s heart.

A cacophony of sound rose through the air, drowning out all sense. Then it dropped to a low, thrumming hum as the entire city began to glitch.

All around them, as far as they could see, buildings rose and fell like the readout of an equalizer in tune with the city’s new discordant beat. The air jerked and shifted, rocked by the waves of glitches now ricocheting through the sky.

Shinjuku was falling apart, and they were standing above the epicenter.

It took the presumable end of the world, but Haru and Ume got their spark back.

“The city’s imploding!” Ume yelled, spinning to Haru. “That could only happen if—”

“Did—Did he just _off himself?”_ Haru shrieked.

“The vessel he mentioned—I didn’t… He can’t be serious!”

“He can’t leave the city without a _fucking Composer!”_

“What’s a Composer?” Riku asked urgently, folding in his wings so they didn’t get picked up by the storm.

_“They’re_ the one who holds the city together,” Ume growled. “They make the rules, they make the _Game_. If there’s no Composer, there’s no _city.”_

“Can’t… one of you be Composer? Can’t one of you take his place?” Sora asked hesitantly, but it was clear he knew more about the process than he’d let on.

The call with Neku. Yozora shot him a compound glare—for not telling them about this, and for thinking that _Haru_ or _Ume_ would make any better of a Composer than their Master.

But Haru shook her head furiously. “No, _idiot!_ To take the spot, you have to _erase_ the previous Composer—but he just erased _himself!”_

“There’s no precedent for this.” Ume said bleakly as she lowered her head, trembling. “Shinjuku is going to collapse. There’ll be nothing left, not even a memory.”

Yozora, Sora, and Riku all looked at each other. Vanitas had his arms folded, chin turned defiantly toward the glitching sky like he’d seen worse.

So the Master—Shinjuku’s Composer—hadn’t managed to summon Kingdom Hearts, opting to bail his vessel like a coward, but this wasn’t what Yozora would call _preferable._

“What if we get Shinjuku to recognize someone else’s authority?” Riku’s mind was already working. “Maybe… If we make some sort of show of power, it’ll go to whoever is strongest?”

Vanitas’ ears pricked at that, but he didn’t turn. Yozora wasn’t too keen on the responsibility either.

Haru and Ume looked at each other, wordlessly communicating something to each other. Probably something like “That’ll never work.” Yozora couldn’t help but agree.

“It’s worth a try,” Sora said, undaunted.

After a beat longer, he and Riku spoke up in unison. “I’ll do it.” Then, still in sync, “No! You can’t!”

 

But Shinjuku had its sights on someone else. Someone who held the copied data of its now-former Composer in their heart, and in its time of need, the city couldn’t tell the difference.

That was when Yozora heard the song.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me writing this chapter: Im gonna give the people everything they want and by the people I mean Me  
> me ending this chapter: Oh Dear
> 
> [NIGHTMARE RIKU](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1168702968620707841)  
>  [Dramatization of this chapter](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1124470588389486592)
> 
> [Catch up on art here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)


	19. The Final Day - Composition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This gets pretty wild but the capitalization is deliberate

The song entered through his eyes, infinite epiphany weaving and swirling itself through mind, bones, and heart.

The song was miracles and multitudes, the perfect formula of being.

Every layer of its sublime symphony reached for the next, echoing and harmonizing with one another to create the planes that built reality.

He lay suspended, enthralled, ears and eyes open and accepting as the starlight of the song poured into every part of Him. And every note He heard, He understood.

It was startling in its simplicity. If he’d ever thought the world was chaos, it was only because He’d yet to hear this melody. It was the song of what that had been and would be, ringed by the borders of Shinjuku.

He was the city, the buildings and trees, the shade in the parks and the glass windows reflecting the sunset, and the cold street lights that blurred the night sky.

He heard the Game, the perfection of its composition now brutalized and discordant.

It gave Him a truth he’d anticipated.

As intricate and lovely and impossible as this symphony was, it wasn’t the original score.

This was a dream. A Shinjuku stolen from its proper Composer and twisted to the Master’s whims, built to imprison his experiments, and two Shinjuku Reapers.

He’d taken them inside with him, used his eyes to blind their ears to the falsity of the city’s song. Prisoners, all, but no more.

The dream that was their prison was collapsing with its charges still trapped inside, but He knew all at once how to mend its rifting walls, how to recompose its melody.

He rewrote everything as it should be, as it had been, with sheet music blueprinted across His Soul.

 

Yet He could not linger here forever, though it felt as if He already had.

He had someone to find. He followed the song’s strain, pulling His mind through the infinite toward the off-key note that had not belonged.

He reached Yozora.

Yozora… Yozora had been a soul lost in sleep, far from home and drifting through a formless nothing when the Master had pulled him under. As Composer, the Master had ripped away the pieces that made Shinjuku’s Players whole and called it an Entry Fee.

Their minds.

Their selves.

Their wills.

Sora.

The less there was to fight him, the more there would be to take.

Yozora was the first to take _back,_ and in him, the Master saw a future.

So he was stolen, shattered, primed to be the Master’s perfect vessel—one capable of holding Sora and Riku and anyone else he wanted.

And he wanted so much.

All it would take was a touch, and anyone beneath his fingers could be rendered obsolete. An extra copy to be disposed of, Master file intact.

But Sora and Riku had fixed Yozora, mended him too wholly, so simply that even Kingdom Hearts hadn’t taken note. Then, the puppet Master robbed of puppet had folded, departed, without retribution.

And now,

now,  
now,  
now,

the once-broken vessel held the _song._

 

But the song did not hold what _he_ wanted, though He had not noticed the absence.

The lost shards of Yozora weren’t there. No pieces to solve the puzzle, no eye to match a set. And if He couldn’t find them, he didn’t know if anything ever could.

Maybe that was for the best.

Maybe those pieces wouldn’t have fit anymore anyway.

The pieces of Sora and Riku were enough. More than enough.

He was brightened by them, sublimed and perfected.

Sora and Riku.

Riku.

Riku had almost made it to Sora’s Game, reaching down to find him within Death itself, but the Master had diverted the course of his dive.

Riku.

He had the rest of Riku’s memories, He realized. All of them. Every shred of Sora was there, shining with his sunlight. Tears budded in His glassy eyes as He thanked the each star inside Him that they hadn’t been lost to the void.

He could give them back.

But first, he had to come back. All Yozora had ever wanted was to be found, to make it _out,_ and He couldn’t lose him now. His home was still somewhere—somewhere among the stars, and he deserved to find it.

So He uncovered and held that lone, discordant note, rediscovering all its nuance and intricacy, every tone and beat that comprised its Soul.

He rebuilt Yozora, all flaws flawlessly recreated—well, maybe not _all_ —and then He pulled His flawless self inside him.

 

**— >>RIKU**

It happened so quickly, in an impossible matter of seconds. The city was degrading, de-composing, and then the lights had come. Iridescent ribbons of lavender light that unfurled through the city in an aurora borealis of wafting music—a sublime song that his heart would remember forever. Riku turned towards the source.

Yozora.

The night sky.

He was galaxies and constellations, exquisite music and light pulsing within a single heavenly body. The blue and red starlight of his eyes married and melded into a resplendent lavender that spread throughout and beyond him to create shapes beautiful and divine.

In moments, Shinjuku was back. The buildings were mended and the night sky cleared of its clouds and distortion until the stars peeked through, shining even against the city lights.

Then, seconds or ages later, the light—the entire night sky within him—was impossibly folded and drawn back inside Yozora’s body. Its stars winked out beneath his skin, but twin galaxies remained, shining inside his opposing eyes.

 

The five of them were too shocked to do anything but stare at him, fresh tears on their cheeks.

Sora opened his mouth. Riku didn’t know how he was capable of speech right now. “Are you oka—”

”Yeah, yeah yeahyeah,” Yozora interrupted, squeezing and opening his eyes like he was trying to blink the stardust out of them. “I’m— I'm here, I'm listening, just, justjust—”

He put his hands on his head, and looked all around, eyes flicking to Sora, Vanitas, Haru and Ume, and finally, Riku.

 _“Riku,”_ Yozora said breathlessly, galactic eyes widening to behold him for their first time.

Riku stepped toward him, having found his voice. “Yozora— you should—you should sit down. We’ll all sit down, and sort this out, all right?” Was he safe to touch?

“I did it, it’s sorted, don’t worry about it—me—I’m fine, I’m fine, but you’re not.” He was almost speaking too quickly to follow.

“What?”

Without warning, Yozora grabbed Riku’s hands.

 

Riku’s vision swirled as memories cascaded through his mind like a river carried to the sea. Each one that had slipped through his fingers now pooled in his cupped hands as Yozora steadied his accepting palms.

Time charitably slowed in its stream as Riku drank in _Sora,_ every drop of him. One by one, the memories fell to fill his mind, and Riku ran his fingers through each.

Sora’s every smile. Each time he’d said “I love you” and each time Riku had responded in kind. Every doubt Sora had ever allayed, every obstacle Riku had overcome by remembering the ever-present promise of _Sora._

The dark expanse of days without Sora, where he could do nothing but look at his sleeping face through glass that might as well have been thick as a frozen lake and say, “I’m sorry.”

Even the most fleeting, most mundane memories shone inside him. The time when they were in grade school and Sora had forgotten his lunch at home. Riku had pretended he wasn’t hungry so they could share his. Sora had gotten jam on his nose, and Riku had used his thumb to wipe it off.

“Riku, no!” Sora had said between his gasping laughter when Riku licked the jam off his thumb. “You’ll get my cooties!”

They were already sharing the same sandwich. Maybe he wanted Sora’s cooties. Didn’t Sora ever think of _that?_

The memories flowed through him like sunlight in his veins, the heart-wrenching, the painful, and the transcendent.

Riku could have swam in them forever, but Yozora's gentle touch returned to ground him. When he came back to his senses, he realized that his hand had been placed in Sora's.

 

**— >>SORA**

Yozora, starry Yozora, brought Riku's hand to his, and as Riku raised his eyes to Sora, they were _alight,_ shining with every color Sora had ever loved, and even some he hadn't yet.

He didn't know why or how Riku was in his Dream Eater state, and he didn't care. He was the most beautiful thing Sora had ever seen.

"I love you, Sora." Riku said, eyes drifting into tender pink as he brought his fingers to rest on Sora's chin. _Everything_ Sora had been waiting for was twined in those four words, within that gentle gesture, and Sora knew his Riku was _back,_ whole and complete and _perfect._

Unbridled joy melted Sora beneath Riku’s warm touch, and as he closed his eyes, Riku kissed him.

  
  
**— >>RIKU**

Riku remembered their first kiss. He remembered their second. Kisses in the sun and beneath the stars, in worlds far and near and every place in between. Kisses in the Keyblade Graveyard, each savored like it could be their last.

None of them could compare to this.

Their lips met as the tides meet a starved shore, brushing and ebbing in a soft, rolling rhythm. They kissed, drinking in the light of each other’s hearts in this storm after drought, and as the light of their hearts sang together, it rose into a song that danced through their minds. Everything the Game had kept them from communicating, everything they hadn’t been able to say, rang within that perfect kiss.

After an eternity, their lips drifted apart, and they held each other, rocking gently to the heartbeat of their song. Sora’s half was absent, still frozen in death, but Riku’s beat loud enough for two. He buried his face in Sora’s soft hair, reminded of his vow to make this right.

The Game had plagued him with doubt, these past few days. Why had he been put here? What was the point? Whatever he'd done to deserve this Hell—was it worth it?

Now, the answer rang through his entire being with the clarity of a blue sky on the first day of summer.

 _Of course_ it had. Every moment spent in the Game was one that had brought _this one_ closer— _this one moment,_ of _Sora_ holding him in his arms. It didn’t matter if he lived his life and a thousand times over—he would never have done anything different. Sora had been re-etched into his heart, fresh and new and brilliant, shining even brighter than before, and Riku wouldn’t rest until the heart he loved was beating in tune with his own.

“I love you, Sora.” He said those four words again, savoring the unshakeable truth of heart it took to say them. Loving him was as natural as breathing—something he’d never forgotten how to do.

Sora looked at him, eyes sparkling with tears. “I love you too, Riku..."

There in the moonlight, a blossom petal caught in Sora's brown hair. Riku drew it out gently, realizing for the first time that they were standing in a park filled with cherry blossoms, lit by cool lamplight.

“How did we…”

“Is it spring?” Sora asked, bewildered.

“It… it wasn’t.” How had they gotten here? Riku glanced around, and spotted the same building they’d been standing on, last he checked.

But Sora just shrugged and drew his hand around the back of Riku’s neck, giving him a smile that could light galaxies. “It is now.”

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora had put Sora and Riku in the nearest park—shifting the trees into bloom for good measure—so he could focus his attention to the next problem at hand.

He and Vanitas—because Yozora didn’t even trust omniscience to keep an eye on him—were sitting across from Haru and Ume in the Dead God’s Lounge, the hidden seat of power inside Headquarters where the Reapers did—had done—all their scheming and shit, and where the Master had erased his vessel before fucking off to… wherever he fucked off to.

Yozora sat on top of a couch, while Vanitas glowered from the seat of a dominating, modern armchair—the Composer’s usual throne. Haru and Ume sat beside each other on a sectional, faces bitter. Yozora had mended them enough so that they were no longer in pain, but not so much that they were _comfortable._ He hadn’t given them new eyes, either, seeing as how _this_ was the room where they’d spied on him from his bugged eyeball. Crushing their set of screens was the first thing he’d done as they’d entered, and they now lay strewn around the carpet, condensed to strange, abstract shapes. He could have just vanished the tech, wiped it out of existence, but he had to set an _example._

All that aside, explaining things with your _mouth_ was way _way_ too slow when you were churning with divine symphonies, so he’d explained everything to their hands—through their hands, whatever. He’d done it to Vanitas, too, and if everyone in the room wasn’t on the same page by _now,_ they at least had the same information.

“How do we get out?” was Ume’s first (predictable) question.

“We have to figure out how to wake the city from its sleep,” Yozora said, because that was one thing the infinite cosmos swirling under his skin couldn’t seem to figure out how to do.

“Shouldn’t _you_ know how to do that, _Boss?”_ Haru shot back spitefully, like she was trying to make him mad.

Something in Yozora flared, and Haru and Ume winced like they’d heard a dog whistle.

He hadn’t meant to do that. Yozora opened his mouth to apologize, but realized he didn’t want to. He didn’t owe _them_ anything.

They’d been better before all this. Not… great, but better. When he’d touched them, he’d seen them as they were—before they were even Players.

They’d been lovely, in love. Parted by accident, coupled in death.

As Partners, they made it an entire week at each other’s side, under the old Composer, and as reward, She’d made them Her Reapers.

Then the Master had ended their world, plunging it into sleep and taking the mantle of Composer for himself. The Game didn’t care who the Composer was, but its Reapers did, and they had preferred their previous Boss. Loved Her.

“Can’t you tell what’s going on outside the dream?” Haru asked belligerently.

“No, I…” Yozora checked. “I only have the last handful of weeks. Starting when the dream began.” The volume of information he had _about_ those weeks was so staggering that he had trouble thinking of them as just a collection of days, a drop in the grandest scheme of things.

“If this Shinjuku is a dream, then who’s dreaming it?” Vanitas suddenly said.

“What.” Haru spoke as if he’d interrupted her.

He got up and gestured to the window. “When that bastard ditched his vessel, the city started to erase itself. There wouldn’t have been anything left if it hadn’t picked _him.”_ He jutted a finger at Yozora, then spread his arms wide. “So how did the dream even start if the real Shinjuku was erased? _Who’s dreaming it?”_

Yozora wasn’t following. Sora and Riku had entered plenty of sleeping worlds, and no one had been dreaming them. “No one’s dreaming it. When worlds fall to darkness, they—”

“I’m not _talking_ about that,” Vanitas cut in, frustrated they weren’t catching on. “Can’t you tell things work _different_ in here?” He clutched a hand to his chest. “If darkness worked the _same_ in here, I’d still be—” He cut himself off and took a moment to reel in his anger before he continued. “Far as we know, when a Composer goes down, so does their city. That’s _it._ That’s the _end._ So, if the real city is still dreaming this, then the real city is _sleeping. So who’s. Dreaming?”_

Ume’s hand shot to Haru’s shoulder as Haru spun to her. _“Boss!”_ they blurted in unison, giddily clutching at each other’s arms.

“Then She’s—”

“She’s not—”

“He didn’t—”

Yozora sifted through what he had of the Master’s memories. Like everything else, they began and ended inside the dream weeks, and _unlike_ everything else, they were fractured, incomplete. The bastard must have found a way to take them with him. But there _was_ something… something about a city’s dream—a Composer’s dream. It was weak, fuzzy, but it was enough to know that what Vanitas said made sense.

“She’s just sleeping.” Ume was overjoyed, showing more expression than she had all week.

Haru brought her forehead to Ume’s. “If we wake Her up, we can leave. We can have Her back.”

Wake Her. The Power of Waking.

Starlight in his skull, and he hadn’t thought of _that?_ As soon as he’d realized it was possible, he could already see it happening. They could do it. They _would_ do it. Stars, why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? Maybe he could blame it on the human form. When you stuffed the infinite inside a finite vessel, a few of the moving parts were bound to be running on a lag. He stood up.

“Sora and Riku should be wrapping up by now.” Yozora looked at Vanitas. “You need to take them back to Shibuya. Sora needs to finish his Game.”

“I’m not pulling _two people_ back through all those planes,” Vanitas rebuked, petulantly.

“He needs his keyblade,” Yozora went on, ignoring him. “We can wake Shinjuku with the power of three keyblades.”

“You and those two? You’re not counting _me?”_ Vanitas was clearly insulted.

“Do you have the Power of Waking?”

Vanitas just opened and closed his mouth, which told Yozora all he needed to know. Not that he hadn’t known already.

“Shinjuku’s not _my problem,”_ Vanitas swerved. “I’m going back to Shibuya, and I’m not taking any _passengers.”_

Yozora picked up on the strained cadence of his voice. Vanitas didn’t think he could make it—not with Sora and Riku. But what he thought didn’t matter, because Yozora had already seen it happen. He knew it could work, with one minor alteration.

“I didn’t say you’d have to do it as you are.” Yozora walked around to stand behind Vanitas.

“What the hell does _that_ mean?”

Yozora pressed a palm to Vanitas’ back, between his wings, and he promoted him.

 

**— >>SORA**

As Sora and Riku walked back towards the building, Sora picked up petals to blow into Riku’s face, just so he could hear him laugh, see his eyes light with pink. His casual, unguarded chuckling was nothing short of spectacular.

Yozora and Vanitas were waiting at the base of the building, under the street lights.

Riku lowered his head in a deep bow as soon as they were close, and kept it down, as if it would prevent everyone from knowing he was crying. “Thank you. For… for Sora.”

Yozora cocked a smile, but his eyes were sad. “You thought I wouldn’t give those memories back as soon as I could? C’mon, Riku.” He turned his head to the side, looking down. “What kind of Composer would that make me?”

 _Composer._ Sora had been too shocked before to process what that _meant,_ but now all the feelings came rushing in a torrent. Sora’s eyes welled as he reached for Yozora’s hands, but Yozora pocketed them in a clear display of not wanting to be touched. “Yozora, you…” Sora sniffed. “You… Why did you…”

Yozora’s face was calm, but Sora could see blue and red galaxies twisting inside his eyes as he turned to look at him. “The city thought I was _him,_ so it…” He shrugged. “You know.”

Sora didn’t. He didn’t understand how Yozora could be so calm about this. “But… But now you have to—”

“I don’t have to stay, Sora,” he said, voice soft and even and soothing. “This Shinjuku is in a dream. The real Composer is asleep, and once we wake Her, all of this will end.”

A dream. Sora could have laughed. It was the Mark of Mastery Exam all over again.

“How do we wake Her?” Riku asked, always quick on the uptake.

“You two need to finish your Game in Shibuya.” Yozora turned to Sora. “We need the strength of three keyblades all using the Power of Waking. That’ll be enough.”

“That’ll end the dream, and let you out?”

Yozora nodded to Riku.

Sora’s mouth set, and he wiped his tears away. “Okay.”

They’d won this Game, and now that he had Riku, _his_ Riku, by his side, there was nothing they couldn’t do. He stared straight into Yozora’s infinite eyes, and promised them: _Everyone is coming home._

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora “explained” the rest of the logistics of what had happened, and as he let go of Sora and Riku’s hands, Sora’s dizzy gaze drifted to Vanitas, and stopped short.

“Wait!” he blurted. “Vanitas, what happened to your _wings?”_

“You just noticed?” Vanitas sneered, though he’d clearly been waiting for Sora’s attention to make its way to him.

Vanitas’ wings had been coupled, doubled to form another duplicate set right between the originals. His four wings shifted like reflections inside a room filled with mirrors.

“Where did you get _those?”_

Vanitas had yet to say “thank you”, and Yozora had yet to find a timeline where he _had,_ but he said it in his own way as he turned to look at Yozora. Sora followed his gaze.

“No way! Yozora?” Sora gasped. “That’s incredible!”

He would never tire of Sora’s praise, but they had work to do. “Vanitas is going to take you back to Shibuya. Win the Game, get your keyblade back, then the two of you can wake Shinjuku from the outside while I wake it from in here.”

This wasn’t the Door to Darkness, though. They weren’t getting trapped on opposite sides of a wall, because Sora was right.

Everyone was coming home.

 

“Why don’t you have wings?” Vanitas had asked as they stood and looked at his new reflection in the building’s windows.

Yozora had blinked at him, not understanding the point of the question.

Vanitas looked back at him, eyes meeting through their reflections in the glass. “The wings are power. But you don’t have them.”

“They’re not power,” Yozora said, comparing his silhouette against Vanitas’. “They’re just a symbol of it.” Some people had to make that power seen to be understood, but some didn’t. “Sometimes real power is inside—somewhere no one else needs to see it.”

  
**— >>VANITAS**

The way out was up. He just had to remember the way he’d come, and follow it back.

Sora and Riku each grasped one of his arms as Vanitas pumped his wings, breaking through one plane after the next. Instead of pulling him apart, it was as if each plane made him lighter, weightless, the pressure around them falling away in layers.

Vanitas breached the next surface, then stopped, touching down on its solid ground. He let go of Sora and Riku.

This was the last layer of the Noise planes. The end of the line.

Sora looked at him. “This is… We’re still in the Noise planes.”

Vanitas wanted to shoot back a “duh”, but he didn’t.

“Vanitas… You’re not coming out with us?”

“No.”

He still didn’t belong where they were. They were all so _bright,_ and he knew that once, it would have hurt his eyes, but he had the growing suspicion that they were making _him_ bright enough to bear it. No, he belonged in here, in the shade their reality cast. He could exist here, where he never had to hurt, and if he could see Sora, sometimes, that would be enough.

_No it’s not._

Sora stepped forward, hand out. “I’ll help you, remember? We’ll go together.”

“All of us,” Riku added, doing the same.

 _All of us,_ Yozora repeated, from somewhere. Vanitas felt a hand on his back, between his wings, and then it shoved him—hard.

Sora and Riku quickly grabbed Vanitas’ flailing hands, ready as always to keep someone from falling, but he just took them down with him.

Through that final layer, out of the Noise planes and into Shibuya’s Game.

 

Vanitas had his eyes squeezed shut. When he got his hands on Yozora…

_Hey, lay off. The sunlight is good for you._

He could feel the light of dawn on the other side of his eyelids, and he _didn’t like it._ He rose to his knees, blind, and covered his eyes with his hands for good measure. Beside him, he heard Sora and Riku getting up from the Shibuya street they’d all landed on. Even behind closed, covered eyes, Vanitas could sense where Sora’s body was, and it was scooting toward him.

“Vanitas, you did it!” he cheered. The pride in his voice made Vanitas’ chest twist like he was going to cry. A few seconds later, Sora’s bright hand met his shoulder, and immediately, the tightness in him unraveled itself.

Vanitas didn’t move his hands from his eyes.

Sora shifted to kneel in front of him. “Vanitas, it’s okay.” Sora’s warm hands rose to envelop his, and gently brought Vanitas’ hands down from his face.

Vanitas squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, not trusting his voice to keep his emotions locked down.

“It’s okay. You can open your eyes. I’m right here.”

The words drained the fight from him. Sora could con anyone into believing the things he said, and Vanitas was nothing but another sucker.

He pulled his yellow eyes open, and let in the light, expecting it to blind him.

It didn’t.

He expected the light to hurt.

It didn’t.

All it did was illuminate the face before him—the one that his fake, copycat face couldn’t hold a candle to.

Sora.

Vanitas stared at him, unblinking, unbelieving.

Sora’s smile widened—Vanitas hadn’t thought it could _get_ any bigger—and he threw his arms forward, wrapping Vanitas into his third hug. “Oh, Vanitas! I’m so proud of you!”

More words he’d never, ever, _ever,_ dreamed of hearing aloud. How did Sora say them so easily?

His vision blurred, light bouncing through the water in his eyes, and without warning, something bubbled up in his throat. It escaped his lungs like a breath he’d been holding for as long as he could remember, and Vanitas started laughing.

He’d laughed before, but it had never been like this. This laughter wasn’t just another means to deliver his spite or his hatred—it was weightless and free and it lessened the pressure in his chest, instead of just making him forget it was there.

He kept laughing, and then he heard an echo of the same laughter in his ears as Sora joined in too.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku raised a hand up to his mouth, covering up his own warm chuckle. Looking at Vanitas, with all his darkness and pain, Riku never dreamed he’d hear Sora’s laugh come out of him—even if they did share the same voice. But Sora really could do anything, mend anyone. Everyone was made better, brighter, by Sora.

Someone beside them cleared their throat, and Riku jumped, torn from his reverie. He turned to see… Shiki’s partner, the one who’d been in Sora’s half of the Traverse Town dream.

“Neku?”

Sora drew himself off of Vanitas, face immediately paling. He opened his mouth, maybe to form an excuse, but no sound came out. Vanitas frowned, displeased that their hug had been cut short.

Neku gave a sharp nod in greeting, clearly not happy that any of them were here.

Riku looked around. “Wait, where’s Joshua?” Based on what they’d learned in Shinjuku, Joshua’s appearance in their dream had been… re-contextualized. The wings they’d seen… Clearly, he held some sort of ranking within Shibuya’s Game.

Neku’s muscles locked up. “He’s…” The syllable told Riku all he needed to know.

Sora gave him an out, having finalized his apology. He stood up. “Neku, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to leave, and and the only way we could get back from Shinjuku was with _Vanitas,_ and—”

Neku held up a hand before he could finish. “Don’t care.”

Silence held them as they waited for Neku to continue.

Finally, he let out a breath and said, “…Thanks for coming back.”

Sora’s face broke into a relieved smile. “I promised, didn’t I? I couldn’t break the rules like that!” He looked to Riku. “We’re here to finish our Game. We’re ready.”

Riku’s brow furrowed. Sora was talking to Neku like he was…

Riku eyed Neku with new trepidation. “Neku, are you… are you the Composer?”

Neku jumped, arms raising at his sides. “Am I the—! Sora, what the hell did you tell him?”

“What did I do?” Sora asked pitifully. “You never even _mentioned_ a Composer! We had to learn that in Shinjuku!”

Riku nodded. “With you being in charge here, I just thought...”

Neku took a deep breath, and let it out as a sigh. “No. I’m not the Composer. I’m a Proxy.”

“I thought you said you were the Game Master,” Sora whined, clearly confused.

“Look, we’re short-staffed right now, all right?” Neku snapped.

“Okay, then what _are you?”_ Riku asked, getting impatient with the bickering.

Neku groaned. “It’s complicated. When a Composer is… indisposed, they have a Proxy. The Proxy can’t change the established rules of the Game, but they can… run it, and be Game Master and assign missions and whatever and whatever.” His eyes went distant. “Once the Composer comes back, the Proxy can renounce their duties.”

Riku nodded slowly, taking it in. So not quite what Yozora was, but maybe something like it.

As for who Shibuya’s indisposed Composer was… Riku had a few guesses.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.

Neku waved his hand like it didn’t matter, even though it did. “’S all right. It’s whatever.”

“Hey, Boss?” came an unfamiliar voice from behind them. “Is the order still out to snag this guy?”

“All that Noise, I figured he’d be taller…”

“What are the kids eating these days?”

They all turned to see Vanitas struggling between two Reapers—a man with slicked back, frizzy orange hair in a black denim vest, and a woman with a pink bob cut wearing a lacy black lolita blouse. Both their pairs of wings were on clear display, and a Noise sigil had been stamped across Vanitas’ mouth.

“Sir!” the woman addressed Neku. “We were coming to give our report,” she leaned to glare at Vanitas, “when we spotted him trying to _slink off_ back to the Noise planes.”

“Figured you’d at least want to give him a talking to.” The man casually tipped his head back as Vanitas tried to elbow him in the nose.

“Let him go!” Sora demanded.

Neku, meanwhile, pinched between his eyes, clearly unhappy with what he was about to say. “Kariya, Uzuki—it’s fine. Just let him go.”

The man—Kariya—flicked his hands up, releasing Vanitas in one lithe motion, and with a snap, the sigil flickered off of Vanitas’ face. Uzuki hesitated, and Vanitas took the chance to wrench himself out of her grip, letting out a growl for good measure.

“B-But Sir!” she protested. “He’s the source of all the new Noise!”

“What of it?” Vanitas spat.

“Gotta admit, it was pretty impressive.” Kariya was looking at him appraisingly. “I think our little Yokai has some serious potential.”

Vanitas glared at the both of them, but, probably not wanting to be grabbed again, scurried over to stand next to Sora.

“Your report?” Neku reminded the Reapers.

“Sir!” Uzuki said, and this time Riku noticed Neku wince at the title. “We investigated the nature of our shared wall with Shinjuku, as requested.”

“It’s janked,” Kariya said.

Uzuki continued. “When living civilians approach the border, they are capable of passing through without difficulty. However, we have observed a number of them returning to Shibuya shortly thereafter looking confused, and in one definitive case, we spotted a Shibuya civilian coming back with food in hand from _Toshima_ —the next city _over.”_

“From what we can tell, Shinjuku is in some sort of stasis, and has been for a while. People go in,” Kariya twiddled his fingers like they were a little pair of walking legs, “and they go right out the other side.” He swished his hand forward, skipping the walking legs to another location. Then he raised an eyebrow at Neku. “In short—kind of something you’re supposed to be keeping a thumb on, Boss.”

Neku’s face flushed like he’d just been scolded. “S... Sorry, Kariya. I’m… I’ve been sort of…”

“Overwhelmed?” Riku helped.

Neku rubbed his face, nodding. “…Yeah. Yeah.”

Kariya gave Neku an understanding smile. “I know, Phones. We get it. Much as we were enjoying the break—”

Uzuki rolled her eyes. “Speak for yourself.”

“—We’re glad you called us back in. No need to shoulder it all yourself.”

Neku buried his face in his collar, but nodded again.

“But… what are we supposed to do?” Uzuki was frowning, her bright pink lipstick forming an upside-down crescent. “Shinjuku is our sister, we can’t just _leave_ it like that.”

Sora finally chimed back in. “Me and Riku and Yozora are going to wake it back up!”

“Shinjuku’s Composer is asleep, and She pulled the city into a dream,” Riku clarified. “Our friend Yozora is still inside that dream, and the three of us can wake Shinjuku’s Composer once we have three keyblades to do it.”

“Ah.” Neku said, looking down. He pocketed his hands and let out another sigh. “Yeah. Yeah…” He turned to Kariya and Uzuki. “I’ve gotta take care of this. Can the two of you look after Vanitas?”

Vanitas flared up like a cat. “They’re not _touching_ me—” He pulled a hand into the Noise planes, but Kariya spoke up.

“Woah woah woah, hold your BMX bike, Yokai,” Kariya assuaged, addressing Vanitas. “You heard our boss call a truce, yeah? I’m sure your friends’ll be done soon, so why don’t we all just hit the mall for a while?”

“Mall?” Vanitas pronounced the word like a food he’d never tried, and had already decided was disgusting. Still, he pulled his hand out of the planes.

Uzuki’s nose wrinkled in distaste as she put her hands on her hips. “You’ve never been to the _mall?_ What, were you raised by _Noise?”_

“That’s probably not too far off the mark…” Kariya said, rubbing his chin.

He took a few tactful steps toward Vanitas, keeping his hands visible and open. “Buck up, kid. It’ll be fun. We’ll buy you a ramen—”

 _“We?”_ Uzuki interrupted.

 _“I’ll_ buy you a ramen, and you can get some free tips from two of Shibuya’s most senior Reapers. Learn the ropes, swap some stories…”

Riku saw Vanitas’ eyes flash with curiosity. Kariya was smarter than he let on.

“Who are you calling senior?” Uzuki balked, giving her hair a playful flip. “Speak for yourself, Kariya.” But he seemed to have warmed her to the idea too, because she stepped forward, bringing a finger to her chin as she looked Vanitas up and down. “We should get him some new threads, first. He can’t waltz around the RG like _that.”_

“What’s wrong with this?” Vanitas said defensively.

“Nothing—it’s just a bit too showy for anyone who wants to hang with _us,”_ Kariya said cooly. “You need some actual clothes.”

Vanitas frowned. “Are they going to look like…” He flicked his eyes up and down Sora's outfit.

“Ugh, tragic, right?" Uzuki said mournfully.

“Hey!” Sora interjected.

“No, we'll hook you up with some real duds.” Kariya gestured to his and Uzuki’s admittedly fashionable outfits. Kariya’s vest was covered in patches, and Uzuki’s blouse was twined with sharp embroidery that looked like Noise symbols. Much more Vanitas’ style, the both of them.

Vanitas narrowed his eyes, but he was clearly considering it. Then he folded his arms and looked away. “…Whatever.”

As good of a yes as there ever would be.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora, Riku, and Neku watched them walk off together, Vanitas lagging behind like a stubborn child. As they left, the nonchalant, passive expression Neku had been holding onto immediately began to crumble. He tucked his face into his collar.

Neku’s expansive Reaper wings flickered into view, like he was trying to make sure they knew what they were up against. “Sora, are you…” he said in a near-whisper. “You’re sure about this? You’re sure you’re ready? You still have two days—you could train a little more, and then…”

That’s when it clicked. Neku was afraid. Not afraid of getting hurt, but of hurting _them._

“We’re sure.” Sora stepped forward, and took Neku’s trembling hand. “Our friend Yozora—the one in Shinjuku’s dream? He got made its Composer.” A drop of water fell onto Sora’s hand, and he gave Neku’s a reassuring squeeze. “He didn’t choose it, though—the city just picked him. He’s been through more than any of us, and he deserves to go home.”

Sora remembered Haru and Ume. They weren’t… great, but if people like Larxene got another chance, then they deserved one too. If Shinjuku was their home, they should be able to go back to the real one.

Riku spoke up. “We’re not asking you to cut us any slack, but you need to understand that we’re serious. Like Sora said—we’re ready.”

Sora smiled at Riku, and his Riku, his perfect, perfect Riku smiled back. “As long as I’ve got my partner, there’s nothing we can’t do.” It was the truth.

Neku squeezed Sora’s hand briefly before pulling his away. “…Okay. Okay.”

“Let’s get started.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this all… makes at least as much sense as real KH & TWEWY lore lmao
> 
> One! More! Chapterrrr! I’m currently editing it and it’s even longer than this one.  
> Thank y’all so much for being here and making it this far…. I lov you  
> [Composer Yozora](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1133453901926084608)  
> [Catch up on art here!](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)
> 
> Riku got me thinking about the idea of Eternal Recurrence and I wanted to share this quote:  
> “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you:  
> 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'  
> Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?  
> Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’”  
>  _\- Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (it’s literally called that)_


	20. The Final Day - Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait longer to post this but then I was like “why should I” so here's the final chapter, 2 days after I posted the previous one, my final act as the wild, feral animal writing this fic
> 
> Thank you for making it this far, for all your amazing comments and support, it’s been incredible!! Let’s Do This

**— >>SORA**

They stood on opposite sides of Scramble Crossing, the painted crosswalks separating them like the bars of a cage.

As Sora looked out at Neku, the briefest doubt flickered in his heart, and he had to ask, “Neku… Once this is over, we’ll still be friends, right?”

For a moment Sora thought that Neku’s hair was blowing in the wind, but then he realized that Neku was nodding fiercely. Sora thought he might be crying, too. “Yeah, Sora.” Neku’s palm shook as he brought it up, summoning his power. “Yeah, we’ll always be friends.”

In the broad daylight, Neku’s eyes brightened, dipping into a honey orange with a vertical slit. “This doesn’t stop until you stop it,” he said, his voice already changing. “So… stop it.” A bushy tail snaked out from behind him, rivaling the size of his wings. It was a fox’s, only instead of being tipped with white, it ended in black, as if it had been dipped in ink.

Smooth and easy, Neku transformed into a huge fox Noise, patterned with the same arrows as his wings. Glowing orange eyes shone from rich orange fur covered in black markings.

“Neku, that’s so cool!”

Sora heard a voice in his head. _Please don’t talk to me right now. You’re making it weird._

Sora’s face dropped in to a frown.

Neku brought his head low, tail swishing in anticipation. _Good luck, Sora._

He lunged.

 

**— >>RIKU**

Neku pushed off his hind legs, moving with astounding speed, considering his size. Riku dodged a swipe of his paw, and saw him wince as he was singed by Sora’s fire.

They had something else to contend with, though. As Neku’s tail dragged through the air, it swished like a paintbrush, creating new sigils that were springing to life as inky little fox Noise.

“Aww!” Sora crooned.

“Sora! Focus!” Riku barked, landing a hit of his keyblade on Neku’s paw.

“But they’re so cute!” Sora was losing his fight already.

It was sounding like Riku would have to take them while Sora focused on Neku. Experimentally, he drove his keyblade through one of the creatures. Instead of bursting to static, though, it fell into a harmless pool of ink.

“They’re not real, Sora!” he called, reassuringly. “They’re just made of ink!”

“Oh!!” Sora seemed satisfied with that. “Let’s do this, Riku!”

“Right!”

 

Riku and Sora had fought together as partners in countless battles over the past few days, but this battle felt nothing like them. Light was being volleyed back and forth between them as they fought, resonating with each of them in turn. It was if the door between their hearts had been half-closed before, and Yozora had kicked it back open. Now that Sora had been returned to fill Riku’s heart, his chest felt light and free—capable of anything.

But as they fought—and fought well—it was clear that Neku was _very good at this._ He prowled the battlefield like he’d been made there, wearing his Noise form like a second skin. Unlike Haru or Ume, he was completely and utterly in control, his fox eyes watching them with purpose and intelligence.

He took each hit in stride, and his tail was supplying an endless stream of distracting ink Noise. The lines of Scramble Crossing were all but erased by the black ink pooling across their battlefield. As much as he appreciated that Neku seemed resolved not to use his teeth on them, Riku was beginning to feel sore from being hit with his paws, and he couldn’t tell if they’d even made a mark yet.

“Neku’s really good, huh?” Sora panted.

“Yeah,” Riku said. “But together, we’re better.”

Sora laughed, out of breath. “Don’t let him hear you say that!”

_My hearing is fine, thanks._

“The kid gloves are coming off now, Neku.” Riku sprang back toward Neku, unleashing a furious combo at his tail. No tail, hopefully, meant no more ink Noise.

 

**— >>VANITAS**

“Reaper Lesson No. 1: Ditch the wings. All of ‘em,” Kariya said, giving Vanitas a pointed look. Then, he demonstrated, flicking his own wings out of view.

He made everything look so _easy._ Kariya jabbed a thumb at the shopping center. “They can see our wings once we go inside, and we don’t want to cause a scene, yeah?”

Vanitas didn’t _entirely_ agree with that sentiment, but he let it slide, because he had questions. “How do I do it?”

Uzuki appraised the double set of wings at his back. “Shinjuku’s _Composer_ gave these to you?” she asked, and Vanitas knew enough about jealousy to hear it in someone else’s voice.

“Yeah,” Vanitas said with a sharp nod. “The guy they were talking about. In the dream.”

_I have a name._

“Yozora,” Vanitas added. Normally, he wouldn’t have been able to stand someone in his head like this, but… Yozora was all right.

Uzuki brought a pointed finger to her mouth thoughtfully. The tip of her fingers had been turned a different color, and they shone like black glass. “Kariya, how do we even know if these _work_ the same?”

Kariya waved a dismissive hand. “They’re close enough. Listen up, kid. Our power’s housed in our wings, but that’s not where it has to _stay.”_ Vanitas liked being included in an _our._ “You can call upon it and take it wherever you want. Like so…” Kariya held out his arm, and Vanitas’ eyes widened as the other Reaper’s arm swirled with sigils that converged into claws.

“I did that!” Vanitas said, pointing. “I did that before!” When he’d torn down the barrier around the Shinjuku building, he hadn’t questioned the appearance of the claws, but what Kariya was saying made so much _sense._

Kariya grinned, like he was proud. Like he was _proud._ “Nice going, Yokai.”

“I’m Vanitas,” he corrected.

“I got it, Yokai.”

“I just said it was _Vanitas,”_ he insisted, a little angrily.

“He’s just teasing you,” Uzuki said, leaning toward him like they were sharing a secret. She brandished her sharp fingers at Kariya, and then flashed a quick grin at Vanitas. “If you want, I can make sure he _never does it again.”_

“Yikes! Put the claws away, Uzuki. I’ll be a good boy.” He banished his own claws and they chuckled. Uzuki pushed Kariya’s shoulder—not hard, but like they were joking. They smiled at each other.

Vanitas didn’t realize he was smiling too until they turned back to him. He quickly straightened his face again.

“Okay. Think of it like, pulling everything back into your chest,” Uzuki explained. She brought her shoulders back, then clutched her hands in front of her, and the wings flickered away.

“Give it a shot, Yokai,” she said, waving her hand at him. “Show us what you got.”

Ventus had always had _Ven,_ plus everything else Vanitas had called him, but Vanitas… Vanitas had never had a nickname before.

His chest was already swelling with _something,_ so all he had to do was pull his wings in with it. Under his command, the power flowed from his back and into his core, where it warmed him just like Sora’s heart had.

He spun to look at his reflection in the mall window, and saw that the wings were gone. All of them.

Then he heard the thing Yozora had said to him before he’d left.

_Sometimes real power is inside—somewhere no one else needs to see it._

Vanitas beamed.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora hit Neku with a Firaga, but it hardly did anything—like he’d gotten used to it.

Riku was right. It was time for all of them to get serious. The sooner they took down Neku’s Noise form, the sooner they could free Yozora, and all of Shinjuku. Sora closed his eyes, and clutched a hand to his heart, letting his magic swell up within him. As he held his hand there, his fingers accidentally brushed the skull pin he still had on his lapel. It resonated immediately with his call for magic, and suddenly, a wave of energy slammed into his chest.

_Tch. Forgot about that._

Sora thrummed with energy granted to him by the pin, a strange but welcome boost. The current ran through his arm, which he raised. A thin light traced a floating sigil in the air—the same shape as the one on the pin. Motes of light bubbled around the suspended symbol, powering up a high-tier attack.

“Sorry…!” Sora let it go.

A splatter of white light streaked down diagonally across Neku’s form, then another joined it to form a bright, blinding X. Target marked, beams of brilliant light blasted down from the skies to slam into Neku’s form. The fox let out a pained howl, and as Sora’s eyes finally recovered from the flash, Neku was on the ground, orange eyes squeezed shut.

“Shoot!” he blurted out, running closer. “Neku, are you okay?”

The fox blinked one large eye open.

 _Ohh not fair…_ Sora could hear the discomfort in Neku’s projected thoughts. _I figured… you’d have used that sooner…_

Sora gasped. “You made that for me?”

 _Shut up._ Sora could tell he was embarrassed.

Neku raised himself, carefully regaining his balance on all four feet.

_All right, you guys move on to the next round._

_“Next_ round?”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Riku was right about the importance of the tail. As Neku shifted into his next form—and his last, Riku hoped—the ink on the tip of the brush tail extended all the way down and throughout the rest of the fox’s body until Neku’s entire color scheme had inverted. The previously black arrow patterns now lit up with a bright orange that glowed like fire.

And fire was exactly what he summoned.

The brush tip lit up in a flame, painting new fox Noise that burned like oil slicks.

“Aww!” Sora groaned. Riku knew that he’d fallen back on fire magic without his keyblade, but they were decidedly out of the frying pan and into the fire, and it was time to leave his comfort zone.

“Use something else, Sora!” Neku exploited Riku’s lapse in attention by swiping a paw into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora wheezed as he felt the hit Riku had just taken.

He didn’t want to use other magic, but Riku was right. He just couldn’t stop thinking about how easy this would all be if he had his _keyblade._

He called on his magic like he had before—now that skull pin’s attack had been spent. Sora squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. He was doing this for Yozora, for Shinjuku, for _Riku,_ who’d followed him all the way into the Game just to bring him home.

He hit Neku with Blizzaga and Thundaga, but they were hardly any better.

Sora groaned.

He hadn’t tried Aero magic yet, but Neku was too heavy to lift.

A burst of Dark Firaga from Riku made Neku wince.

Neku was too heavy…

But Riku wasn’t.

“Riku!” he called excitedly. “Get ready!”

 

**— >>RIKU**

“Right!” Riku responded, not even bothering to ask what he needed to get ready for.

Sora cast Aeroga on the battlefield, and a tornado of wind swirled up beneath Riku’s feet, launching him stories high. And for a moment, he was suspended there, looking down at a black stain flickering with fire and the orange markings across Neku’s fur. Then Riku tipped forward, and flung himself into a Spark Dive aimed squarely at Neku’s back.

He landed with incredible force, and Neku recoiled.

The light that had been rallying between Sora and Riku lit them from within, and they knew they were ready.

“We can do this, Riku!” He could hear Sora’s smile. “Together!”

“Right, Sora!” This time, Riku could say his name. Sora’s perfect, perfect name. His heart felt like it was lifting off the ground, calling Horizon to lift with it. “Together!”

And they _were_ together, wholly and truly, nothing left to bar them from each other’s hearts.

Horizon rose brighter than ever. It rose for Sora’s life, for Shinjuku, and for the third heart that had once lifted it with them.

As they brought it down on Neku, a wailing howl rang through the air in a steady, held note as the battlefield roared with a blinding static that bleached the world black and white.

When it finally cleared, a human Neku was laying flat on his back, arms out. He blinked his eyes open, squinting at the sun. All signs of the fox Noise were gone, except for a smear of ink on his cheek that looked almost like whiskers. “Cheaters,” he coughed, a puff of static escaping his mouth.

Sora and Riku scrambled to help him up.

“You know…” he managed, as they took his hands. “This whole ‘Game’ thing… it’s meant for Players. Not fricken _gods.”_

“Neku, are you gonna be okay?” Sora asked, voice brimming with concern. Riku would rather they moved things along—Sora seconds from being _alive_ again.

Neku let out a ragged laugh. “Yeah, Sora. It’s just a few scratches.”

See? It was just a few scratches.

He turned to Riku. “You guys did really well.”

Sora beamed. “And I didn’t need a keyblade! Well, I guess except for the last part, but that wasn’t really _mine_ so much as _ours…”_ His shining eyes met Riku’s.

“Never seen a Sync Attack like that one…” Neku muttered.

“But the rest of the Game! I did it without it!”

Neku gave a weak grin. “Yeah Sora, that’s… that’s kind of the whole point of an Entry Fee. Speaking of…”

 

**— >>SORA**

Neku waved his hand, and the Skull Noise keyblade appeared in the air before them. Neku’s brow furrowed. “It… It didn’t look like that before.”

“It does that sometimes!” Sora said, flashing Neku a smile. “I think it liked staying with you.”

Unable to hold himself back any longer, he leapt forward and took the handle of his keyblade, and it met his hand with the warmth of an old friend. It hadn’t even been gone for a week, but like Riku, Sora couldn’t believe he’d made it so long without it. He banished it back into his heart, where it belonged.

“Congrats, Sora. Game Over.” Neku smiled, a little nervously. “…Friendship back on?”

Sora nodded fervently. “Of _course_ it is, Neku!” He pulled Neku into a hug. He’d missed him, too.

 

Riku hovered near them, and as soon as he judged that they were done, “Neku, can you bring him back now?”

“Who?” Sora blinked.

“Y-You,” he said quietly, eyes going misty. “Back to life?”

Sora had forgotten about that. “O-Oh yeah…”

Neku let out a frustrated sigh. “If I didn’t know better, Sora—I’d say you _liked_ being dead.”

He summoned something to his hand.

It was a white feather, but not like a regular feather—it was abstract and flat, and Sora could only imagine the kind of Noise it had come from. Its edges seemed to flicker, like at any moment it was going to explode.

Neku held it up, a little uncertainly. “This is it. You ready?”

Sora nodded. “Ready.”

“You’ve done this before, right?” Riku said, glancing between Neku’s face and his shaking hand.

“Nope,” Neku said, and let it go.

 

**— >>VANITAS**

Vanitas had never had so much fun. He wasn’t sure he’d even known what fun _was_ before this.

They’d taken him to a store for clothes. But not clothes like he’d seen everyone else wearing. They walked right past all the brightly lit stores filled with clothes that were light, sunshine colors, and they stopped at a place that looked more like a cave than a store. Inside, it was filled dark clothes that looked like they’d seen battle—all covered in tears and metal clasps and stitches.

The person at the counter had spiked hair and metal all over her face, and she greeted Kariya and Uzuki like they knew each other. “‘Sup, guys? Still trying to cut back on the sweets?”

Kariya groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

Her eyes dropped to Vanitas. “Damn, who’s your new friend? That getup is _sick!”_ She seemed to be talking about the darkness he was wearing, but she used “sick” like it was a good thing.

Kariya clapped him on the shoulder. “He’s our latest project. Needs a new look for a _job interview.”_

Metal Face burst out laughing. “Right right right, sure. Where’s he working?”

“With us,” Uzuki said. “If he's lucky.”

Metal Face let out another laugh before stepping out from behind her counter. “Right on, right on. Then let’s start with some _real proper_ workplace attire.”

 

They started by asking him what he wanted. The problem was, what he wanted had never _mattered_ before, so he had no idea what he wanted, and he locked up—throat closing, muscles tensing. He braced himself for their anger, their disappointment, their retribution, but it didn’t come.

“Stage fright—happens to even the hardest of rockers,” Metal Face said.

“Look,” Uzuki compromised. “How about we pick you something, and you tell us if you _don’t_ like it?”

Vanitas could do that. He nodded.

Soon, they had a pile of clothes ready for him to try. Kariya took him into a curtained room in the back.

“So how do you…” Kariya folded his arms, frowning at the seamless suit Vanitas was wearing. “…get out of that?”

“I don’t.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s part of me.”

“Okay… _rad…_ but can you like…” He waved his hands around vaguely. “…Make it all smaller? So we can put this stuff on top?”

Vanitas pulled on the darkness around him, and drew back what he was wearing into a sleeveless, deep red jumpsuit without boots. It was what he slept in, when he could sleep.

 _“Shit,_ kid, you really are a yokai,” Kariya said, holding out a pair of pants.

 

He wasn’t sure he liked how clothes _felt,_ but he knew he liked how they _looked._

They’d picked him a shirt with a picture of a ribcage on it, a frayed jacket with _spikes_ on the shoulders, and a pair of pants that were all torn up so that his jumpsuit showed through the holes. Finally, Kariya helped him into some dark boots that reminded him of the ones he usually wore, only with more buckles and straps.

Something was missing though. Vanitas had thought of what he wanted.

“Uzuki’s fingers,” he said. “How are they like that?”

Kariya laughed. “Her _fingers?_ What do you mean, kid?”

Vanitas pointed to the tips of his own fingers in explanation. “They’re black, and shiny. Like claws. I want that.”

Kariya lolled his head back, raising a hand to cover the huge grin spreading across his face. “Her _nail polish?_ Oh, kid, you really were raised by Noise.”

Vanitas scowled at Kariya through the mirror. Was he making fun of him for not knowing what it was?

“They have some in the case,” he went on, once he’d recovered. “And you can pick whatever color you want.”

 

After the clothes, they’d given him food. He’d never eaten _food_ before. The concept had always disgusted him—putting things in your _mouth_ and then _swallowing_ them sounded too much like when the Unversed returned to crawl back inside him, but Uzuki had _dared_ him to try ramen, and he couldn’t back down after that.

Uzuki gave him a spoon, Kariya showed him how to hold it without spilling the liquid—the broth. It took a lot of explanation, but eventually they decided he was ready.

Carefully, carefully, Vanitas brought the spoon to his lips, and drank.

It was _amazing._ It was like his mouth was feeling its own emotions—ones he could barely even _describe._ It was… warm, and happy, and comforting, and as it went down his throat, it settled below his heart to heat him from the inside.

“Oh, hun…” He realized Uzuki and Kariya were both looking at him, pity in their eyes. Wait, that wasn’t right… Concern was the right word. What were they concerned about?

Something wet dropped onto his arm. For a second he thought he’d spilled the broth, but then he realized he was _crying._ His face lit up with heat as his emotions went into a nosedive. How could he _do_ this, in front of _them?_ He rubbed his face. What was he crying for, anyway? He hadn’t felt sad, or upset. He’d felt the opposite.

“Ohh, come here!” Uzuki suddenly said, before she leapt off her chair and wrapped him into a tight, crushing hug. It wasn’t soft like one of Sora’s, but Vanitas liked it almost as well.

Kariya stood and put a strong hand on Vanitas’ back. “You’re in it now, Yokai. She only hugs the keepers.”

 

**— >>SORA**

Sora stood on his heart station.

At least, he assumed it was. It _felt_ like his station, but the stained glass had been replaced with a mirror, like the expanse of water in the Final World.

Then, a ripple budded beneath his feet, carrying itself out to the edges, where a quiet burst of water fell from the sides of the platform.

The ripple came again, stronger this time. Then again, and again, rhythmically pulsing to push more and more of the glossy water from the surface of the station.

As it settled into its cadence, Sora realized it was his heartbeat.

Its beat strengthened, until the water was cascading off the sides in a waterfall that filled his ears from all around, like the rushing of blood in his ears.

He watched the patterns of the station begin to reveal themselves—in monochrome shades of grey. The design had changed slightly, and with everything that had happened, how could it not?

Donald and Goofy and Kairi were there, with updated smiles, and so was…

Riku.

Out of everything on the station, his portrait had changed the most. It was bigger than the others, and his once-cocky smile had been changed to one filled with warmth, eyes turned towards Sora’s smiling image in the glass. Riku’s face wasn’t ringed by a circle anymore—it had become a soft white heart that seemed to produce its own cool light.

As he looked at Riku’s picture, warm light bloomed from beneath him, and the station began to fill with color.

But instead of just the blue sky and ocean, it drifted with all the colors of Destiny Islands, from day to sunset to dawn, ringed in circles like the phases of the moon. It reminded him a little of the mural he’d painted in Udagawa, and Sora wondered if Neku’s station looked anything like his painting.

The last of the mirrored water fell, and Sora saw a light. It opened to him like a beckoning hand, calling him home. He dove straight for it, and it took hold of his heart and carried him back.

Sora’s eyes opened to the most beautiful eyes in the universe. Riku’s head was ringed with light so lovely that it couldn’t possibly be coming from the sun behind him.

Sora’s heart started beating, so loudly in his ears that he would have missed what Riku said if he hadn’t leaned in to say it.

“Welcome back, Sora.”

Riku was on his hands and knees beside him. Sora raised his arms and took the back of Riku’s neck, immediately pulling him down into a kiss. As Riku’s eyes drifted closed, their song began again, fervent and _alive,_ _both_ heartbeats thrumming in perfect tune.

Riku shifted so that his knees were on either side of Sora, and he dipped his head down in a series of playful kisses all across Sora’s flushed cheeks, like he was trying to kiss each and every freckle. It was _paradise._

Then Neku cleared his throat, and Sora’s bubbled up with laughter. “S-Sorry, sorry!” He wasn’t though, and judging by the smile Riku gave him as they got up off each other, Riku wasn’t either.

 

They got street crepes while they waited for Kariya and Uzuki to return with Vanitas.

Riku was eating ravenously, having not eaten all week.

Sora, meanwhile, couldn’t even finish his third crepe. He handed what was left of it to Riku, who accepted it gratefully.

“…Do you think Vanitas is doing okay?” Sora asked.

Neku nodded, then swallowed his bite. “Yeah. They can be a bit prickly at first—and by ‘they’ I mean, Uzuki—but they’re good people, and damn good Reapers. They’ll keep him in check.”

The air burst with laughter, and Sora spun towards it, having recognized the voice.

Vanitas walked beside the Reapers, practically dancing around them like a puppy at their heels. Sora hardly recognized him—he was wearing new, punk-looking clothes, and he fit between the Reapers like the three of them were a matched set.

“How did you not get _erased?”_

Uzuki brandished her sharpened fingernails. “I _ripped_ out its core and _crushed it_ with my bare hands.”

Kariya raised his chin to Neku in greeting as they neared the group. “Looks like you guys had _fun.”_ He tapped his left cheek. “Y’missed a spot.”

Neku flushed, quickly rubbing off the streak of ink he’d missed.

“As for us, I’d say Yokai did great on his first field trip,” Kariya said, casually elbowing Vanitas, who actually _smiled._ “He cleans up nice.”

“Vanitas! You look so… normal!” Sora said, still not over it.

Vanitas frowned at that. “Normal” clearly wasn’t what he was going for.

“I mean…” Sora tried to think of a better way to phrase it. “You look good—you look like _you._ Like _Vanitas.”  
_

Vanitas gave an imperceptible nod. “And you don’t look dead.”

It was close enough to a compliment. Sora smiled.

“I was sort of hoping to see that feather in action…” Kariya said thoughtfully. “You snooze you lose, I guess.”

“Next time,” Neku promised.

“But… wait, where are your wings?” Sora asked.

“Don’t need them,” Vanitas said proudly, just before he brought them back into view, like Neku had done. He looked at the other Reapers. “Not all the time.” Kariya gave him a nod.

“Vanitas,” Riku said, pulling back their attention. “We need to tell Yozora we’re ready to use the Power of Waking. Can you go back to Shinjuku?”

“He already knows,” Vanitas said.

“What?” Riku was confused.

“He like…” Vanitas gestured around his head. “He’s been watching, or whatever. I’m his link.”

Sora was intrigued, and stepped closer. “You mean like, he can see us? Through you?”

“Yeah, he’s—” Vanitas stopped like he’d suddenly lost his train of thought. Then his brow knitted in clear confusion.

“He says ‘See you in Shibuya.’”

 

**— >>YOZORA**

To wake a Composer, you did need the power of three keyblades. The thing was, Yozora _was_ a Composer, and a _Composer’s_ keyblade was easily enough for the job.

But, in all the futures where he _told_ them that, Sora stayed dead for another few days, at least. Time was filled with futures where Sora and Riku refused to leave Yozora to deal with Shinjuku by himself, and after the city woke, Sora got tangled between the machinations of the Games because Vanitas couldn’t find the right planes back to Shibuya. In one of them, Sora wound up trapped in Death _forever,_ and in another, Riku used the Power of Waking in Yozora’s stead, and never woke up.

No. They were all _so close,_ and they really needed to move things along.

The simplest solution was to get them to leave on their own, before Shinjuku went through the unprecedented shift between being _asleep_ with one Composer, and _awake_ with another.

So yeah, he’d lied.

And yeah, they’d be mad.

But they’d get over it.

They always did.

“You sure you don’t want to bail?” Yozora asked Haru and Ume. “Vanitas can come get you.”

“We’re going back to Her,” Haru said, holding Ume’s hand tight.

“Whatever it takes,” they said.

 

Yozora handed them a black box. “Hold onto this during the shift.”

“What’s in it?” Haru asked, suspicious.

“Other stuff I don’t want to lose.”

Yozora felt gross about giving _them_ the box of memorials from the observation deck, but he was about to be very, very busy. Ume nodded and brought her hand to the top of the box to hold it closed.

“It’s time,” Yozora said.

Haru and Ume closed their eyes in focus, as if they could help wake the city through force of will alone. Then Yozora summoned his keyblade—much bigger and fancier than last he’d seen—closed his own eyes, summoned the Power of Waking.

Shinjuku shifted beneath them like someone turning in their sleep.

When Yozora opened his eyes again, he was suspended above a massive heart station. It ran endless in all directions, expansive as Shinjuku itself. It was a mural that told the story of the city, of everyone who’d ever lived in it, and of one person in particular. Her.

_Well, this is embarrassing, now isn’t it?_

Her voice drifted like a mother’s lullaby. _Sorry to have made you come all this way._

“It’s okay,” he breathed. He’d rehearsed this part in his head, but She was making it difficult to think. The human parts of him wanted nothing more than to lay down to sleep, beside Her, but the stars that never slept managed to keep him lucid.

He felt a hand brush his cheek. _Why didn’t you fix your eyes? One is still his._

It was the last question he’d expected—one he couldn’t form the answer to. She didn’t press.

 _You did well, Yozora,_ She went on. _Let’s put an end to this._

Yozora’s keyblade arm raised, assisted by Her will. She was as eager to return as he was to leave, and together, they shattered the slumbering glass of Shinjuku’s station.

 

As She opened her eyes, Yozora closed his.

The stars ran from Yozora like spilled, opalescent ink, falling from him in meteor showers without end, but She was there to hold him steady, even as She woke. He poured out swirling symphonies and galaxies of thought, eternities and infinities.

Was there going to be anything left?

_Everything that matters, sweet heart. Don’t worry so much._

He wanted to see Her, but as he opened his eyes, the galaxies inside them winked out, and all he could see was darkness.

The last notes of the song rose from his chest like weak plucks on piano keys, and then it was over.

 

Yozora blinked his eyes open. He was lying on a sidewalk, shaded by trees. He could hear the shift of leaves, distant voices, the murmurings of a city. A park?

For a while he just had to lay there as he tried to remember how this body was supposed to work. Using one arm, then the other, he rolled himself up into a shaky seat. Every part of him felt too light—like he’d been made hollow. He swore he could hear himself echoing inside with each movement.

“That will wear off.” It was a voice like a lullaby. Hers.

He raised his head to see Haru and Ume clinging to an older woman in a sharp suit as if she were a ship mast in a storm—both of them crying as the woman stroked their hair. Their tears and clinging hands were rumpling the fabric of her suit, but it looked like the furthest thing from her mind.

None of them were holding the box. “Did you…”

“I have them. All of them. Don’t worry.” A softness drifted across the her features, and she smiled at Yozora with her eyes more than her mouth. “It’s time I thanked you, but…” Her eyes twinkled. “Words take too long, don’t they?”

She parted from Haru and Ume, and knelt down to offer him a hand up.

As he took it, his mind bloomed. Her softness filled him, starting in his chest and spreading out to every section of his soul. He was lifted, easily, to his feet, and as Her touch lingered, he received everything that words weren't enough to deliver.

She pressed a small object into his palm.

“And Yozora… Don’t resign yourself to unhappiness just because a few things got lost.”

He opened his hand. It was a compact mirror, turned to face him.

“You don’t have to be like them to be loved.”

He stared back at his reflection, unbroken in the mirror.

Both his eyes were red.

They welled with tears in the mirror’s image, and he pulled them away to look at Her.

“Now, I’m sure they’re waiting for you,” the woman said, like She hadn’t just fixed the thing he didn’t even know he’d been terrified of.

That Riku liked him more when he could see Sora’s eye in his face.

She turned to Her Reapers. “Before he goes… Ladies, do _you_ have anything to say to him?”

Haru and Ume quickly stepped forward, with bleary eyes and tearstained cheeks, and brought their hands stiffly to their sides. In tandem, they bowed their heads low, bending at the hip.

“Thank you!” “We’re sorry!”

And then,

“We’re sorry!” “Thank you!”

Out of all the scenarios he’d imagined, it wasn’t the _most_ satisfying apology, but Yozora nodded, glad to be done with them. “I have somewhere to be.”

“Wait,” Ume said as he turned to go. “You’re going to leave this world, right?”

Yozora looked back at her, then nodded.

“Out there… if you find him,” she went on, eyes hardening like ice. “You _end him.”_

“You better rip him to _pieces,”_ Haru said, her own eyes lit like fire.

“Ladies, ladies,” the Composer said, casually drawing Her arms around their shoulders before smiling at him. “If he did that, there might actually be something _left.”_

Yozora smiled back. “I’ll make sure there isn’t.”

 

**— >>SORA & RIKU**

Soon after Vanitas spoke, he tipped forward, almost stumbling as his extra pair of wings flickered out.

“What the—” He straightened again, eyes searching like’d just gotten separated from a friend in a crowd. “He just—”

Riku turned urgently to Sora, eyes locking. Together, they looked towards Shinjuku, just as a burst of music lit up like fireworks above the city.

They started running.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

Yozora moved to start walking toward Shibuya, but the Composer cut him off. “Oh sweet heart, that’s much too slow.”

In the next moment, he was standing at the border.

He looked back.

The cold Shinjuku skyscrapers that had caught the dream light like knives now shone with the same sunlight that melted frost in spring. Scents and sounds wafted through the air in a resounding declaration that Shinjuku was _awake_ and _alive._

Yozora had stopped Shinjuku from falling apart, but She’d made it _bloom._ He was almost sorry he couldn’t stay, to rewrite the stark, cold, deadly streets that sprawled through his mind, with Shinjuku as it should be.

But he had a date to keep.

 

They ran through Shibuya, legs pumping in time with a rhythm that pulsed beneath their feet, and the city carried them closer.

Yozora saw them emerge from a side street, and for a moment, all of them froze. Yozora could see Sora’s face wrenching up with tears, even at that distance. One more breath passed, and they burst forward again, running until they met.

The three of them collided like magnets.

Sora buried his face in Yozora’s jacket, sobbing freely, while Riku wrapped his arms around them both, his own tears silent. Yozora was a blend of the two, tears rolling down his cheeks as he sniffled and tried to keep his lungs from seizing up.

“Yozora, y-your eyes,” Sora fit in between sobs. “They’re s-so pretty…”

“You got them back…” Riku said, so compassionately that Yozora felt stupid for even having _thought_ he’d be disappointed.

“I got them back,” Yozora said, through the tears. “They’re mine.”

After a while, the tears ebbed, and shifted suddenly to laughter that rose between them, filling the air until their breaths were brimming with it.

Sora, astonishingly, was the first to stop, drawing in a loud breath before suddenly shoving Yozora.

“Y-Yozora, you _jerk!”_ Sora said through his free-flowing tears, fighting to make himself angry. “You could wake Shinjuku the whole time?!”

Yozora nodded as he gasped in a breath, trying to reign in his laughter. It didn’t work. “If I’d t-told you, you guys would have—”

“Done something stupid?” Riku filled in, a full grin on his face.

Yozora dissolved again, nodding.

“I can’t believe you let us _leave you in there!”_ Sora yelled, even though he was smiling again.

“What, and let you keep being _dead?”_ Yozora brought a hand to ruffle Sora’s hair, and then shoved his thick head. “Some friend I’d be!”

Sora gasped and did the same to Yozora, trying his best to mess up Yozora’s hairstyle. “Friends don’t lie to each other!”

Riku stopped laughing for long enough to say, “I don’t know, Sora, I think I’m with him on this one. You’re prone to distraction.”

“And you aren’t?” Sora shot back.

“Hey!”

Yozora loved them. He loved them so much.

 

**— >>SORA**

They circled up with the others, once Yozora had promised never to lie to them ever, ever, again, not about anything.

“We gotta take a selfie together!” Sora said excitedly. “All of us!”

“A _selfie?”_ Neku gaped.

“Yeah, it’s when you hold out the camera towards you, and—”

“I know what a _selfie_ is, Sora,” Neku cut in. “I just didn’t expect _you_ to.”

“Rude!”

Sora patted his pockets, looking for the Gummiphone, but all he had was the red flip phone. He pulled it out. “…Hey, Neku? Where’s my phone? The one I had when I got here?”

Neku squinted at him. “Your… phone?”

Sora gestured like he was hefting it in his hand. “You know… it has a screen on the front, and a case like a crown?”

Neku’s eyes dawned with recognition. _“That_ brick? I thought it was a kiddie tablet or something. I couldn’t get it to turn on.”

“I can have it back, though?” Sora asked hopefully.

“Yeah—just a sec.” Neku suddenly vanished.

Riku checked his pockets, but all he produced was a blue version of the red flip phone. He looked at Yozora questioningly, who responded with a vague shrug.

“I don’t know what he did with it. I didn’t see it.”

After another minute or two, Neku reappeared with Sora’s Gummiphone in hand.

“So… it turned back on,” he began, sheepishly. “…You sort of have… like 300 notifications.”

Neku held it out, and Sora snatched it from his hand, then Riku swooped in and snatched it from his.

“L-Let me just check real quick,” Riku said, _suspiciously._

Sora narrowed his eyes, and tried to swipe it back, but Riku held it over his head. “Come _on,_ Riku! No fair!” Sora said, jumping to try and reach it.

“It’s not important! Don’t worry about it!”

“Oh my god, Riku, just let him see.” Yozora clearly knew what the big deal was.

Riku’s face flushed, but he relented, lowering the phone back into Sora’s reach.

Sora took the phone and unlocked it.

There were notifications from _everyone_ —Roxas and Aqua and Hiro, everyone who was waiting for them to come back—all with messages Sora knew he’d never stop crying over if he tried to read any of them now.

But the very oldest—the first one he hadn’t been able to answer, was from Riku.

 _R: I’m on my way to get you. I’d rather walk Death by your side forever than take another step in Life without you. I love you. Wait for me. - Riku_  
  
Sora had cried a lot today, but it was like his eyes had been just been practicing for when they saw this message. “Riku…” he wibbled. “I… Riku…”

He didn’t have to say anything more. Riku wrapped him in his warm arms, held him close. They hadn’t just been words on a screen—they’d been as real a promise as anyone could make, and Riku had meant every letter.

 

Distantly, Sora registered the Gummiphone ringing, then felt it lift from his hand.

“Hello?” Yozora asked.

“Who are you!?” Donald’s voice blasted over the phone.

“Yozora…?” Goofy’s confused voice came through.

“Where’s Sora?!” Donald yelled at full volume. “What have you done with him!?”

“Hey, hey!” Yozora said, defensive. “Don’t get your feathers in a twist—Sora’s right here.”

Sora turned his wet, snot-streaked face to Yozora, who was holding the Gummiphone’s front camera toward him and Riku.

“Sora!!” Donald and Goofy both yelled in unison, faces practically smashed against the screen.

“Donald! Goofy!” Sora scrambled over to take the phone back from Yozora.

“We’re on our way, Sora!” Goofy declared. “Chip and Dale built a doohickey to track the signal of your Gummiphone, and a little while ago, it went off!”

Donald was holding his beak too close to the microphone. “We’re almost there! Don’t you dare move a muscle!!”

Someone called from the driver’s seat of the Gummiship. “We really mean it this time, Sora! Stay put!”

“Kairi!” Sora’s eyes lit up.

“Riku’s with you, right?”

“Uh-huh!” Sora said.

He could hear her laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. We’ll be there soon to bring you both home, okay?”

Sora looked at Yozora, then over toward Vanitas, who was currently locked in some sort of pin game with Uzuki.

“…How much room do you have on the ship?”

 

After he hung up, Sora got his selfie. They all huddled around Hachiko—even Vanitas seemed excited to be included in the group—and smiled at the camera.

“Cheese!”

Sora snapped the picture just as Riku planted a kiss on his cheek, and they all laughed as they passed the phone around to see the surprise captured on Sora’s face.

He’d never forget this week. Not ever.

 

**— >>YOZORA**

“You’re coming with us, right?” Sora asked him as they waited for the Gummiship.

Yozora rubbed the back of his head, suddenly at a loss. The omniscience hadn’t reached this far, and he had zero plan. “I mean… I’m not… from here originally, so… I guess—”

“Where are you from? We can take you home!”

He dug through his memories again, just in case the answer had changed since he’d come back. It hadn’t. “I don’t know where I’m from.”

“You didn’t get the memories back?” Riku asked, concerned.

Yozora shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, I—I couldn’t find them.”

He felt the tears about to spill over when Sora’s warm hand met his. “We’ll make new ones.”

“Together.” Riku brought his soft, strong hand to Yozora's shoulder.

“You can meet everyone! For real this time!” Sora squeezed his hand. “They’re gonna love you!”

“Hah…” Yozora wiped his face with his other hand. He wasn’t so sure, but he wasn’t going to argue with Sora.

“I’m gonna see if Vanitas is ready to go!” Sora bounded off. Being brought back to life had done wonders for his energy level.

Riku and Yozora took a seat on the closest bench, and for once, Yozora lowered himself into the actual seat.

Yozora glanced at Riku.

“Hey, Riku?”

“Sora’s right—they’ll love you.”

“Sure,” he said.

But they weren’t who he cared about right now.

“Riku?”

Riku turned to him, eyes bright and attentive, with just the right amount of concern. He was such a saint.

“If you hadn’t come… this week.” Yozora’s heart made sure to remind him of is presence as it beat against his ribs. “I don’t know where I’d be. What I’d be.”

Riku smiled. “Me neither. Thank you.”

Yozora bat his shoulder. “That was my line!”

They chuckled, and then their eyes met. It was now or never.

Yozora closed the distance between them, and kissed Riku on the cheek.

“Thank you,” he forced out before his mouth could say anything stupid.

He was about to draw away when Riku touched his chin, stopping him short. Then he gave him a kiss in return, right on the lips. “You’re welcome.”

That marked the moment when his brain stopped working.

 

**— >>VANITAS**

“Vanitas!!” Sora yelled, nearly making him fumble his Tin Pin Slammer move. Uzuki looked up, and he took his chance to knock her pin off the stage.

“Hey!” she protested.

“You snooze, you lose,” Vanitas said.

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you sound just like Kariya.”

“Vanitas, are you ready to go?” Sora asked.

He looked at Sora, a million emotions rising to do battle in his chest. “Go…?”

“Go home,” Sora said. “You can meet everyone, and see Ventus!”

Vanitas’ eyes drifted to the ground, and stared for a long time at a pin that had been knocked off their game board.

“Unless… you don’t want to?”

He turned back to Sora.

“You don’t… have to come if you don’t want to.” There was a sadness in Sora’s voice that Vanitas didn’t like, but… he realized Sora was right.

Kariya and Uzuki understood him in a way the others wouldn’t. Kariya and Uzuki didn’t see him as a lost piece of Ventus, or a forgotten shred inside Sora’s heart. Kariya and Uzuki were dark in the same ways he was, but they were light, too, and in them, he saw what he _could_ be. What _he_ wanted to be.

Before this week, he’d thought he’d always hurt. He’d thought pain was eternity. But here, it didn’t have to be.

He didn’t want to go back. Not yet.

“Yokai’s one of us now,” Uzuki said. “…I mean, if he wants to be.”

 _“Does_ he want to be?” Kariya had returned from a walk with Neku, and raised his eyebrow at Vanitas.

Vanitas stared at them, face twisting.

“Use your words, dude,” Kariya encouraged.

Vanitas only had one. “Yes.”

Uzuki giggled with delight. “Yes!”

Sora smiled, still sadly, and gave him a nod. “Okay.” He didn’t need or even _want_ Sora’s approval, but his eyes pricked all the same.

“See, Phones? It’s not so hard to use your words. Friends appreciate honesty.” Kariya folded his arms, and Uzuki, surprisingly, joined him.

“Yeah, and if you don’t tell your little kid club about your _moonlighting_ within the week, I swear I’ll erase you myself.”

“That was _just_ what we were talking about,” Kariya said, eyeing Neku.

Neku pulled his face into his collar. It looked useful for when you didn’t want to show people your face. “Message received, okay? I’ll… I’ll tell Shiki and the others.”

“You _better,”_ Uzuki threatened.

Sora’s mouth dropped open. “You haven’t told _Shiki?!”_ He threw his arms out. “Neku, she’s your friend! Friends don’t lie to each other!”

“Shiki’s in an advanced clothing design course with her other friend, and Rhyme’s helping Beat with cram school…” Neku needed more collar than there was to sink into. “They’re all so busy, so I just—I haven’t lied… I just haven’t… told them… about this.”

_“Neku!!”_

Kariya put his hand around Vanitas’ shoulder, casually steering him away. “Let’s let them sort that out for a bit.”

Uzuki joined them, a wide grin on her face. “Welcome to the Reapers, Yokai.”

 

**— >>RIKU**

Later, Sora and Riku stood on the roof of 104, watching the skies for the Gummiship.

“There’s a lot of people… Won’t they freak out when they see a space ship coming down from the sky?” Riku asked.

“Neku said they’ll probably think it’s a publicity thing for a video game, or something?”

Riku couldn’t take it any longer.

“Yozora and I kissed,” he confessed.

“Oh dang!!” Sora said. “I mean, I understand him kissing you—he has like, the biggest crush on you.”

“He _does?”_ Was that why Yozora had suddenly stood up, said he forgot something, and run off?

“Yeah, Riku. And I would _know,”_ Sora said confidently. He folded his arms as his expression turned thoughtful. “But you kissed him back, huh?”

“Yeah, I just… I don’t know. We… we went through a lot together, this week.”

“You must like him a lot.”

Riku couldn’t deny that. It wasn’t like what he felt for Sora—bold and blinding like a summer day—but Yozora was like a cool breeze in the evening, just after the sun had set, and Riku… Riku liked that too.

“Yeah.”

“Makes sense. He’s really cool—just like you.” Sora smiled warmly, and leaned up to give him a peck on the cheek.

They looked out at Shibuya.

“And if he ever wants to kiss me, too…” Sora added, casually. “You know.”

Riku burst with laughter. “Oh, is that how it is?”

Sora grinned. “Yeah, that’s how it is.”

 

The roof door opened, and Neku and Vanitas stepped out to join them, with Yozora trailing behind, eyes very intent on looking at the city around them and everything but Sora and Riku.

“Leaving already, huh,” Neku said. “I was kind of getting used to you.”

Sora smiled. “We’ll be back soon! Now that everything’s back to normal.”

“With your luck, I doubt that’ll last.”

Sora laughed, but Riku dearly, dearly hoped Neku was wrong. He’d like to go a few months without the universe devising a new disaster, a new reason for Sora to be pulled from his arms. They were _so close._

“Look!” Sora called, pointing up. The Gummiship had finally appeared in the wide Shibuya sky.

That finally got Yozora to look up.

Their eyes followed the ship, and as it drew closer to the roof, Yozora’s eyes met Riku’s, then flicked nervously to Sora, who immediately noticed and gave him a thumbs up. Yozora’s face flushed, and he brought a hand up in an attempt to cover it.

As soon as the ship was close enough to see them standing there, it jerked down, its landing gear only just barely dropping in time.

The door burst open, and Donald came running out, with Kairi and Goofy right behind him.

Donald took to the air, squawking some nonsense Riku could _not_ understand.

“I know I know I know!!” Sora was trying to say as he flapped and jumped around.

Kairi brought her hand up to whap Riku’s chest. “Sora I get, but _you,_ Riku?” she scolded. “You couldn’t wait _two seconds_ for him to come back?”

“No,” Riku said, honestly.

She huffed, but Riku knew she was happy to see them. He was happy to see her, too. They hugged each other close.

“I’m sorry, Kairi.”

Once they'd pulled away, she folded her arms and turned up her nose. “One down, 999 apologies to go.”

Riku grimaced. “We deserve that.”

“I gotta say,” Goofy chimed in, “You two sure do work quick! I’ll bet you set some kinda record!” He turned to Yozora. “And you must be Yozora!”

Yozora jumped, eyes going wide as a full moon. “Ah… I…”

“He’s coming with us!” Sora called between Donald’s yelling.

“Then welcome aboard, Yozora!” Goofy gave him a cheerful smile.

Neku squinted over the edge of 104, then checked his phone. “Can you guys… wrap things up? This is already a hashtag.”

“Really?!” Sora asked, clearly proud he knew what a hashtag was.

“Sora.” Vanitas said stiffly. “Before you go.” It was a demand.

Sora chuckled and pulled Vanitas into a tight hug. “Bye, Vanitas.”

“Tell Ventus…” Vanitas said, wrapping his arms around Sora as he closed his eyes. “Tell him I’ll be back. Just not now.”

“I will, Vanitas.” Sora patted his back. “And I’ll visit, soon!”

“Sora!! It’s time to go!!” Donald squawked.

Vanitas pulled away, and backed up to Neku’s side.

“Bye Vanitas, Neku! We’ll be back soon!”

 _“Not_ as Players!” Riku quickly added.

“Yeah,” Neku agreed. “And if you do, you’re on your own, because I am _not_ doing this again.”

 

**— >>YOZORA**

They all climbed into the Gummiship, but Yozora’s feet were heavy. He stared at the steps, hand hovering above the rail. Other worlds… He knew what they were like, but only secondhand. Only through other people’s eyes. He looked back—back toward Shinjuku. He’d spent a week thinking he belonged there, in a twisted sort of way. The knowledge that he didn’t, that he never had, left him lost.

“Yozora, let’s go.”

He raised wet eyes to Sora and Riku’s encouraging faces, and as they held their hands out to him, he didn’t need a world or a home, because they were both.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ending Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2AMTT8rlewklDDIViyJP9D)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [Shinjuku's Composer](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1133537285255835648)  
> [The,,,, riku/yozora kiss](https://twitter.com/toppiegames/status/1167987513782194184)  
> [Art thread](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1181792626854387712)  
>  
> 
> Just like 4-year-old me who would recount the entire plot of Jumanji to anyone who would listen, I’ve been utterly consumed with wanting to tell this story!! I can’t thank you all enough for coming along for the ride and reading pages and pages of my hollering. We did it!!!
> 
> Thank you to [corfidbizna](https://corfidbizna.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for being the kh professor who advised this dissertation, and to [icntblevehedied](https://twitter.com/icntblevehedied) and [greatcain](https://twitter.com/greatcain) on twitter for betaing this and encouraging all my hollering, I love you both!!  
>   
> This might be the biggest project I’ve ever done and it’s absolutely the longest thing I’ve ever FINISHED because I’m usually very distractible, but the kh/twewy spirit (mr. twister kingdomhearts himself) was really moving me on this one. TWEWY has been my favorite game since it came out so I think I’ve been waiting for the chance to play with its world like this!
> 
> And for those of you who haven’t played TWEWY, I want to say I think I only spoiled like… a couple things so if you’ve thought “oh I’ve been spoiled I guess I won’t play it” do not LISTEN to yourself and go play/watch TWEWY if you can. I think it’s best on DS (hence why this fic has such a big narrative focus on partner planes being separate), but the Switch port is so so fun too, and it’s also on mobile! Hopefully this fic has helped communicate how cool of a game it is, or at least how much I love it.
> 
> I read some poetry while I was working on these last 2 chapters (poetry keeps my mind working when I get stuck on something) and I’m really fond of [Dream Land by Christina Rossetti](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44995/dream-land)!  
> Yozora sure became a whole dang character over the course of this fic, and I really wonder what he’ll be like in the next game! I hope he’s cool so I can be proud of that son too. Then again my favorite TWEWY character is Joshua so even if he’s a bad child he’ll still be my son
> 
> Please go out and have fun with this AU(??) if it’s inspired something and whether it’s writing or drawing or anything else, Please Link Me To It—I’m sure we’ll be here a while until the next game comes out.
> 
> Feel free to ask additional questions in the comments, cause I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that I worked out in my head, but didn’t touch on in the fic! I was kind of barreling through this thing and might have missed explaining something I meant to explain. (Check to see if I’ve answered about Joshua, because I do have an answer about that but don’t want to put it right in the fic for people who haven’t played TWEWY)
> 
> I’m at [toppiegames](https://twitter.com/toppiegames) on twitter if you wanna talk or see what I’m looking to work on next!
> 
> Thank you all for your support!!! 
> 
> Lastly, in conclusion… twewy good… amen


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